House in chaos, party works at damage-control, advances campaign

Many party leaders agree that the BJP’s ‘‘subtle statements’’ of achievement may not sound like election campaign to the common man, but are, in fact, part of the BJP’s election preparations.

This seems to have forced the AICC to advance its original plan to take on the BJP in its campaign ahead of the general elections. The party had planned to bring out advertisements and campaign material to highlight problems concerning ‘‘the middle-class voters,’’ like inflation, unemployment and want of infrastructure.

Now, Manmohan Singh and Pranab Mukherjee have reportedly been conferring on how to ‘‘package’’ the attack against the BJP’s understated yet effective attempts at ‘‘creating the right atmosphere’’.

Counting heavily on the economic survey, the Congress is planning to release statistics to show the ‘‘sorry state of the nation’’ as against the BJP’s claims.

Initiating this informal counter-campaign today, party spokesperson Jaipal Reddy said: ‘‘The (BJP’s) ‘feel good factor’ is not a ground reality. It is not reflected in the mood of the people. It is only confined to the cocktail circuit.’’

‘‘We are going to come out with the details of the gloomy employment scenario soon,’’ he said, giving out details of the state of the infrastructure. ‘‘Lending by the financial institutions in infrastructure sector has declined in five years. In power sector, the lending in 1999 was Rs 4,000 crore, in 2003 it came down to Rs 3,600 crore,’’ he said.

Reddy also quoted falling figures for telecom, stating that lending by FIs in 1999 was Rs 1,200 crore but has come down to Rs 600 crore.

‘‘For roads, ports and railways, the lending was Rs 1,350 crore in 1999 and came down to Rs 900 crore in 2003,’’ he said.