Congress party is searching for a big bang idea

In a bid to lift the sagging mood and morale of its party workers over the developments of the last one month, including the crushing defeat in Bihar, the Congress party and the government have suddenly woken up to the need to effectively and aggressively counter the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance's campaign against the party.

After veteran BJP leader L K Advani's attack on the government, calling it a government 'of the lobbyists, for the lobbyists and by the lobbyists', the Congress core committee met on Tuesday evening to chalk out the road map ahead on how to counter the NDA campaign.

The core committee is also discussing the food security bill, which will be taken up.

Union Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal was also called to the core committee meeting, as the leaders wanted a full briefing on the 2G Spectrum and A Raja issues, which have proved to be an embarrassment for the government.

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Earlier in the evening, there was a strategy committee meeting at the party's war room at Gurudwara Rakabganj road where again Kapil Sibal had been called.

Ghulam Nabi Azad, Ambica Soni, Ahmed Patel and Veerapa Moily attended the meeting.

It is learnt that during her speech at the All India Congress Committee plenary session, which will see over 20,000 Congress leaders congregating in North Delhi, party president Sonia Gandhi is expected to lay out an agitation programme against the BJP and NDA as a counter to the nationwide agitation being launched by the latter against the Centre and the issues of corruption.

Senior party leaders say that while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has remained silent during the entire Parliament session on the phone tapping row, his decision to speak out and that too at a platform of corporate India has not sent a positive signal for a party, which claims to represent the aam admi (common man).

Similarly, the Congress president also spoke during the Congress Parliamentary Party meeting on the last day of the session with a senior leader saying it was too little too late considering the amount of flak the government has received.

There has been no strong counter attack by the Congress leaders, no aggression and no attempt to set the agenda. They have merely been reacting and that too in a manner, which has not helped the party's cause.

Sources say the Congress leadership would be looking at the reaction and feedback from its middle-rung leaders during the plenary session before working out its full strategy but more and more it is beginning to look that the party would have to come up with a big bang idea to salvage its image and its government's credibility in the two months to the budget session if it wishes to stop the BJP its tracks.