Cong to reconnect with lawyers,meet today

Even as the UPA government undertakes to implement ambitious judicial reforms,the ruling Congress has embarked on an exercise to reconnect with the legal fraternity....

Even as the UPA government undertakes to implement ambitious judicial reforms,the ruling Congress has embarked on an exercise to reconnect with the legal fraternity. The party is organising a national convention on Law Justice and aam aadmi at Vigyan Bhawan here on Saturday,which is likely to be attended by about 1,400 lawyers and human rights activists from across the country.

The partys seriousness about the exercise is evident from the list of speakers at the daylong function. Apart from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who will inaugurate the meet and Congress president Sonia Gandhi who will preside over it,the list of speakers includes at least 16 Union Ministers,three Chief Ministers and senior leaders like Pranab Mukherjee,P Chidambaram,M Veerappa Moily,Sushilkumar Shinde,Ghulam Nabi Azad,C P Joshi,S Jaipal Reddy and Mukul Wasnik.

After 22 years,we are organising a function of this magnitude. This is to revive and reconnect with the legal community and the human rights activists, said Abhishek Manu Singhvi,chairman of the AICCs Legal & Human Rights Department,which has organised the

convention.

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Congress is the natural party of choice for lawyers,human rights activists and intellectuals. There is no richer heritage of a succession of eminent lawyers starting from Mahatma Gandhi to Motilal Nehru,Jawaharlal Nehru,Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Dr Rajendra Prasad,among numerous others. They have been at the vanguard of the Congress movements right from pre-Independence times, he said.

One million lawyers have an impact on 50 million people because they are the opinion-making community. Congress offers them a secular,middle of the road connectivity along with big-ticket legal reforms, said Singhvi.

The Congress had organised a similar convention about 22 years back,but its initiative to reconnect with the legal fraternity gradually lost steam with H R Bhardwaj,who headed the legal cell for a long time,showing little interest. The party now plans to make renewed efforts to woo lawyers into its fold.