Panel set up for better Cong-govt ties
Anita Katyal
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 1
A four-member committee, comprising government and Congress representatives, has been set up in an effort to forge better ties between the party and the government and ensure proper projection of official policies.

Members of this informal committee are Information and Broadcasting Minister S. Jaipal Reddy, Ms Girija Vyas, chairperson of the AICC media department, Mr Prithviraj Chavan, Minister of State in the PMO and Dr Sanjaya Baru, Prime Minister’s media adviser.

The committee met for the first time on Sunday to finalise the modalities of their subsequent meetings. It was decided that the committee would meet once a week, either on Tuesday or Saturday, depending on the convenience of its members.

UPA government and AICC sources said the basic objective of this committee was to ensure better coordination between the government and the party. The government representatives will brief the party about its policies while the AICC will provide a periodic feedback about the impact of these decisions.

The effort is not to confine this exercise to Delhi alone but to also involve state party units. Consequently, the AICC will keep the PCCs posted on the Prime Minister’s visits to their states. On the flip side, AICC general secretaries will provide the necessary political and organisational inputs to the PM prior to his visit to a particular state.

For instance, Dr. Manmohan Singh was briefed by Mr Salman Khursheed, AICC general secretary incharge of Tamil Nadu, before his recent visit to the state. He has also been briefed on Jammu and Kashmir by AICC general secretary Ambika Soni and Union minister Ghulam Nabi Azad.

“This is to keep open the lines of communication between the party and the government,” said one source, stating that indepth briefings and information about government policies will help the party to explain them better to the press and their constituencies. It will also ensure that other parties do not take credit for these official decisions.

It was pointed out that if the party had been given a detailed advance briefing about the government’s proposal to strengthen the public distribution system (PDS), it would have been able to publicise it properly. Similarly, it was explained that when the government deferred a decision on petrol and diesel price hike, the Left parties were the first to publicise the fact that this was done under their pressure.