New Delhi, July 10
The Congress is planning a mass contact programme with people across India to launch its “game changer” National Food Security Ordinance, hoping it will deliver in the next general election on the lines of NREGA in 2004.

From the next week, top Congress media managers and handpicked youth Congress leaders will begin their tour of state capitals to spread the message of right to food contained in the scheme that aims at providing subsidised food grain to 67 per cent of the people.

The party leadership has selected national spokespersons Renuka Chaudhury, Sandeep Dikshit, Bhakta Charan Das and Meem Afzal besides Randeep Surjewala, Prem Chand Mishra and Mukesh Nayak to carry the message on the ordinance forward.

Surjewala is Industry and Commerce Minister in Haryana, while Mishra and Nayak are chief spokespersons for the party in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, respectively.

“They will visit every state and hold media briefings to clarify nuances of the ordinance. They will hold workshops for Pradesh Congress Committee office-bearers where we are in power. In other states, they will establish mass contact with people,” said Ajay Makan, in charge of media and communication, today. With Assembly elections in five states round the corner, the Congress is speeding up the launch of its media blitzkrieg on the ordinance by readying publicity material and preparing a catchy slogan for the ordinance.

While the direct cash transfer scheme is being sold through the slogan “Aapka paisa aapke haath”, the Congress think tank is debating the best way to describe its new scheme. The haste around its rollout - Congress president Sonia Gandhi will meet 14 Congress CMs on July 13 to debate the implementation of the scheme - is understandable given the impending announcement of election schedules and the imposition of Model Code of Conduct.

“We want to remove misconceptions about the ordinance, including the fact that while in the former version of the food security Bill, the onus to devise the criteria for implementation lay on the Centre, in the ordinance the same has been left to the states who will have a free hand,” said Makan.