3 June 2003

VAGHELA SKIPS CRUCIAL MEETING OF PCC CHIEFS

From Our Delhi Bureau

NEW DELHI: Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee President Shankarsinh Vaghela absented from the crucial brain-storming session of the PCC presidents convened by the leadership here on Tuesday.

His absence set off speculation that he knows the writings on the wall that he may be dropped soon and hence he chose to depute PCC spokesman Hasmukh Patel to represent him at the meeting. The other prominent PCC President absent was Ranjit Deshmukh of Maharashtra.

AICC General Secretary Kamal Nath, who had teamed up with Vaghela to advance soft Hinduism in the Gujarat Assembly elections, has been already withdrawn from the state and hence Vaghela has a reason to stay away from the conclave of the PCC Presidents, who held a day-long meeting at the AICC headquarters here.

Also significant was arrival of the Gujarat Congress Legislature Party leader Amarsinh Chaudhary in Delhi on Tuesday, though the party sources said he had been summoned here to explain his public posture in support of the Hindutva in the presence of the BJP leaders at a recent meeting in Gujarat.

Preparing for the upcoming November Assembly elections in five states, including Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan bordering Gujarat, the Congress leadership does not want them to be affected by the shadow of its ill-advised election strategy of Gujarat, the AICC sources said.

KRANTI RATH: After the day-long delebrations, senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid announced Tuesday night that the Congress would be conducting a week-long "Kranti Rath Yojana" from August 9 to 15 to revive the people's memories about the great contribution of the Congress in the freedom movement.

He said the meeting was basically convened to assess the actions taken by the state party leaderships about the first-ever conclave of the Congress block presidents towards the end of April.

The "Kranti Rath Yojana" is one of the six programmes finalised by the PCC Presidents' conclave to prepare for the assembly elections in five states and then for the Lok Sabha elections due next year.

The PCC Presidents reported to the Central leaders the hectic preparations of the BJP for the Lok Sabha elections, giving them apprehensions that they may be advanced from September to February or March and hence the party should prepare for such an eventuality.

PRE-POLL ALLIANCE OPPOSED: Though nobody chose to openly question the announcement of Congress President Sonia Gandhi in support of coalition with other parties in states and at the Centre, the PCC members were apprehensive that the party would be the loser if it tries the alliance experiment in the upcoming Assembly elections.

The general consensus emerging from the meeting was that the Congress should contest the election on its own in the Assembly elections and any kind of tie-up with the like-minded parties can be only a post-poll exercise.

ALLIANCE IN 5 STATES?: A concern was also expressed on AICC General Secretary R K Dhawan making a statement at a public rally in Daltonganj that the Congress will have electoal alliance with the secular regional parties in the Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram.

The Central leaders tried to explain that no such decision has been taken except for the party's resolve to join hands with the secular parties to remove the BJP-led government from the Centre and to prevent the BJP from capturing any state in the Assembly elections.

They, however, appreciated the concern of the PCC leaders as they agreed that there were no regional parties who had any solid base in any of the states going to the polls except for Mizoram to think of electoral alliance.

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