Cong races with Left for credit on REG, RTI

Disturbed over the failure of the state units to tom-tom the UPA government’s aam aadmi initiatives, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi has asked the party’s frontal organisations to take remedial steps. The party found it particularly worrying that the Left walked away with the credit for the legislations on rural employment guarantee and the right to information.

Party leaders have now been asked to focus on these two bills wherever they speak. AICC general secretary in charge of frontal organisations Ashok Gehlot is coordinating the propaganda, and in her meetings with office bearers of Youth Congress, Mahila Congress and Seva Dal, Sonia has been demanding a better campaign. Last fortnight, the Youth Congress organised training camps for campaigners who will take pamphlets in regional languages to villages. The lesson comes from the comrades who tapped the grassroots on the two bills. Sonia wants the ‘‘reach-out’’ programme to be completed by year-end when the REG schemes will take off.

‘‘The emphasis on these bills is politically very important for us. Almost all 200 districts in which the REG is going to be implemented are in states where we are in a very weak position,’’ said an AICC functionary. ‘‘We are in the opposition in Bihar, Orissa, UP, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand and these bills are perhaps the last opportunity to tell our voters we are doing something for them.’’

The high command has asked the IYC to focus on the REG bill in places where the programme is to be implemented and on RTI in states where poverty levels are low and literacy rates high.