Congress scrambling to be different

With archrival Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) deciding in principle to keep its pro-Hindu agenda on the backburner yet again and seek a vote on issues like development, good governance, security and secularism, the opposition Congress party finds itself caught in a political bind due to the similarity of issues.

Over 100 party leaders who have been working for some time to prepare reports on various burning issues that could form part of the party's poll manifesto for provincial polls slated later this year have been asked to study the outcome of the BJP's recent top-level conclave held in Mumbai so as to repackage the same issues in an attractive manner.

Narrowing the gap between the two parties is a major cause of concern for the Congress party, a senior party functionary admitted. "If they find the BJP stealing the thunder from them, the Congress party has the advantage of packaging the same issues differently so as to attract voters," he said.

Various committees and sub-committees which are busy preparing detailed notes on these issues have been asked to finish their work by this month end and hand over their reports to the central coordination committee headed by Pranab Mukherjee.

The idea is to give this committee enough time to study these proposals and place it for consideration during the three-day conclave scheduled to start at the Himachal Pradesh capital Shimla from July 7.

The Shimla conclave is expected to finalise the party stand on what is being officially termed as an exercise to prepare future roadmap for the party.

Retaining power in four party-ruled states, namely Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Delhi, has become crucial for the Congress party in its bid to wrest power from the BJP at the centre during next year's general elections.

The party's think-tank feels their recently coined the slogan "Congress ka haath, garib ke saath" (Congress' hand is with the poor) is both promising and catchy and has the potential to revive its image of the bygone era of being the sole champion of the poor. Incidentally, haath (hand) is the electoral symbol of the party.

"Since the BJP leads the ruling coalition at the centre and we have our governments in 15 states, including these four states, we are fully aware that voters may get confused if we simply talk about issues like development, good governance, security and secularism since the BJP will try to counter the achievements of our provincial governments with that of the federal government," the party functionary associated with the exercise, said.

Incidentally, veteran leader Arjun Singh, who is heading the committee on political challenges, is busy preparing a draft on possible alliances with other secular parties since the Congress party has more or less admitted that it may be an uphill task to come to power on its own at the centre.