Date:15/11/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/11/15/stories/2007111561301600.htm

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Omnibus AICC resolution to feature Nandigram, nuclear deal

Gargi Parsai

NEW DELHI: Nandigram and the India-U.S. Nuclear Agreement will feature prominently in an omnibus resolution at the All-India Congress Committee (AICC) meeting here on Saturday, which is being seen as the launching pad of Rahul Gandhi, the scion of the Nehru-India family.

The omnibus resolution that will take stock of the economic, political and foreign affairs situation will be the mainstay of the discussions at the meeting.

It will strongly articulate the party position on issues, independent of the government stance, and spell out the way forward.

Rahul Gandhi, who is a member of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), was on Wednesday an active member of the Draft Committee that finalised the draft resolutions which will be approved by an Extended CWC meeting here on Friday before being discussed in the AICC on Saturday.

The AICC, to be chaired by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, is expected to be attended by over 2,000 delegates from all over the country including CWC members, general secretaries, Chief Ministers, Legislative Party leaders and Pradesh Congress Committee chiefs among others.

This is the first time that the party is having a single, compact document on political, economic and foreign affairs.

Besides Nandigram and the nuclear deal, the resolution will talk about forthcoming Assembly elections, internal and external security, the oil situation, economic growth rate, inflation, agriculture, food security, farmers’ suicides, and India’s relationship with the United States, Russia, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Sounding the bugle for polls, as it were, the omnibus resolution will also talk about the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, Bharat Nirman, education, youth affairs and other “achievements.”

The Draft Committee that was chaired by Pranab Mukherjee also finalised four other draft resolutions.

One was on amendments to the Congress constitution to weed out “bogus membership” by ending dual membership. The members will now not have to subscribe to the party in-house magazine Sandesh .

Three other draft resolutions that will be placed before the AICC will be on the Centenary Year of Gandhi’s Satyagraha; 150 Years of the First Struggle for Independence and on 60 Years of India’s Independence from Colonial Rule.