New Delhi, July 20
With eye on elections, the ruling Congress has decided to impart special training to its state-level spokespersons in communications and media strategy.

Around 225 delegates from across India, including those from the Youth Congress and National Students Union of India (NSUI), will gather in New Delhi for two days from Monday to attend lectures on topics like “dos and don’ts on the electronic media” and “how to prepare for an effective debate”.

Trainers have been lined up by the party to educate its young delegates on how the Indian economy is doing much better under the UPA vis-à-vis the NDA. Lessons in economics will come from Finance Minister P Chidambaram and those in manufacturing and FDI from Anand Sharma, Commerce Minister and those in IT-communication interface from Anand Adkoli, son-in-law of Petroleum Minister Veerappa Moily.

Adkoli is overseeing the social media initiative of the Congress and his online communications tool “Khidki” is presently being used by Youth Congress activists. The plan now is to introduce all Congress spokespersons to Khidki and build the same social media network in states.

There will also be a special video-conferencing session by MoS HRD Shashi Tharoor since he would be in Kerala during the workshop. It will be titled “Communication challenges in the present day media scenario”.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari will teach delegates “how to prepare for an effective debate or a press briefing” while party’s national spokesperson Sandip Dikshit will help them understand the research methodologies that the Congress uses nationally.

A full session on the National Food Security Ordinance will be held with Dr Mohan Gopal, Director, Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Contemporary Studies, Congress’ key strategist Jairam Ramesh and Food Minister KV Thomas in charge.

Ajay Makan, Congress’ communications department head, said, “We want to create our mirror images in states and build at state levels the same structures we use at the AICC here. We all need to have one voice on issues as a party, hence the subject-specific component.”