Forward Planning
- Even before polling, the Congress is drawing its roadmap for the first 100 days in power in the new government
- Experts from diverse fields are on its forward planning committee
- Party activists say such planning is required to prepare for a second stint in power
- Rivals say the entire exercise is a gimmick and the Congress is building castles in the air
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The Congress may be presiding over a fractured UPA, but it has an impressive line-up of experts to strategise for the government it hopes to form. Among them are Dr Amit Mitra of FICCI, Tarun Das, mentor of the CII, social activist Aruna Roy, environment expert R.K. Pachauri and agriculture expert M.S. Swaminathan. Pratap Bhanu Mehta will provide policy and research inputs. Also on the line-up are former additional solicitor-general K.T.S. Tulsi and UGC chairman Sukhdev Thorat. Political inputs are from Pranab Mukherjee, P. Chidambaram and Veerapa Moily.
The entire effort is to plan for the future and show the Congress means business. Says Mehta, "This is a credibility-building measure. The Congress wants to send a message that the day we are back the promises will be delivered. It also wants to give the impression that the party is serious about the promises it has made in its manifesto." Another expert on the committee was more open and dismissed the entire exercise as a gimmick.
Opposition politicians too are dismissive. BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar says, "The government that failed to deliver in the 1,800 days it was in power is planning to do something in the first 100 days of its yet-to-be government! People are not fools." Adds Mohammed Salim of CPI(M), "The Congress did forward planning once before in 1999, but since then many hundred days have gone with nothing much happening. I want to refer to the past five years in which the promises of the CMP have not been fulfilled."
Congress spokesperson Tom Vadakkan, however, gives this spin: "The Congress follows a system whereby we would like to ensure that everything we promise our voters becomes a reality. The top leadership also wants proper groundwork on the projects and promises in our manifesto. Hence, the committee is preparing a roadmap to support our promises once we come back to form the government." But isn’t the exercise rather presumptuous and a case of jumping the gun? "Planning ahead cannot be termed ambitious," says Vadakkan. "There will be a CMP to accommodate the manifestos of our partners but the forward planning will be the base. What we are doing now will help us chart out the CMP."
The committee’s brief is to recommend ways in which the promises in the Congress manifesto can be implemented. "There is a timeline between planning and execution. Planning should be done beforehand. As soon as the government is formed, it should get cracking on what matter. So forward planning is required," says Tulsi. But for it to have any relevance, the Congress and the UPA must return to power. Most pundits predict a fractured mandate which could throw up surprises. As CPI(M)’s Nilotpal Basu puts it, "It’s good to see haseen sapney (sweet dreams) but they shouldn’t become Mungeri Lal ke haseen sapney."
