NEW DELHI, June 17: For only the second time in its 113 years, the Congress will hold a training camp in Madhya Pradesh in the first week of September, on the lines of what was held in Narora in 1974, where the top party leadership is expected to decide on a host of issues including the party's future line.The decision to hold such a camp was taken in the Congress Working Committee's (CWC) extended meeting last month. The timing of the camp is crucial. It comes just before the Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi where the Congress hopes to perform well.The camp is most likely to deliberate on whether the party should topple the current BJP-led Government at the Centre.Party president Sonia Gandhi is under pressure to bring the Government down and form one led by the Congress. The Left, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the Samajwadi Party and others have been pressing for this.Several CWC members have also told Sonia that the BJP Government must go. Ahmed Patel, JitendraPrasada, Madhavrao Scindia, Tariq Anwar, Pranab Mukherjee, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Sharad Pawar and Manmohan Singh are believed to be among the CWC members keen on pulling down the BJP Government for various reasons. The primary one being the confusion over the Budget and the country's economic policy as shown by the rapid reversal of Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha's proposals in crucial areas.Politically, the Congress is keen to go for the Assembly polls under its own Government at the Centre. At the moment only two influential leaders are blocking the proposal to bring the Union Government down: Sonia herself and Arjun Singh. Which is why the training camp will be important as it is expected to be thrashed out either way.The Narora camp was convened by the late Indira Gandhi in 1974 after Pokharan I and before the imposition of Emergency. The idea then was to formulate a strategy on "important issues facing the country", which will be applicable in MP too. Initially the session was scheduled for mid-Augustbut has now been put off by a fortnight.Sonia has constituted a 16-member Central Coordination Committee (CCC) headed by former AICC general secretary Nawal Kishore Sharma to supervise arrangements for the session.A reception committee headed by MP Chief Minister Digvijay Singh will aid the CCC in hosting the camp, likely to be held in the hill resort of Panchmarhi. The 15 other members of the CCC are: Ahmed Patel, Arjun Singh, B Shankaranand, CK Jaffer Sharief, Jitendra Prasada, K Karunakaran, ML Fotedar, ND Tiwari, P Shiv Shankar, PA Sangma, Pranab Mukherjee, RK Dhawan, Sushil Kumar Shinde, Margaret Alva and SC Vats.The reception committee members are: MPCC president Urmila Singh, Deputy Chief Minister Subhash Yadav, Kamal Nath and Vimla Varma. Four committees - on economic, political, foreign and organisational affairs - have been set up to prepare background papers for the session.
