The UPA government is inclined to revive the National Advisory Council (NAC),whose term ended in March last year. However,UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi has not made up her mind on chairing the body yet,it is reliably learnt. Official sources said that while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the Congress president enjoy a great rapport and hold frequent discussions on policy matters,the party leadership feels the need for a mechanism to ensure that the partys commitments to the people are fulfilled. We are certainly going to revive the NAC,although we dont know anything about Mrs Gandhis role yet, a Cabinet minister who is also a senior Congress leader,told The Indian Express today. The NAC,as it was,was a hugely successful coordination mechanism,at least as long as Mrs Gandhi headed it, said an AICC general secretary. The NAC played a very important role in making path-breaking legislations like the RTI Act and the NREGA a reality. We need this mechanism all the more because we cannot leave implementation of the Congress manifesto to the whims and fancies of babudom, the general secretary said. Congress leaders argued that but for the NACs push,many important legislations could have been diluted and delayed because a section in the first UPA government had considered social sector schemes like the NREGA wasteful expenditure. The party now attributes its success in the Lok Sabha elections to such schemes. Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has already gone public with his demand for the revival of the NAC. At an NREGA Rozgar Mela in Rajsamand on Friday,he said that the NAC needed to be reconstituted with Sonia Gandhi as chairperson. The previous government had got ideas from the Council,and the present government too would benefit from it immensely,Gehlot said. Crisis managers of the ruling party,however,prefer to tread cautiously on the issue. Sonia Gandhi had had to resign as NAC chairperson after getting embroiled in the office-of-profit controversy three years ago. She also quit the Lok Sabha to take the sting out of the Opposition campaign against her before seeking re-election successfully. The NAC had been set up as an interface with civil society to implement UPA-Is National Common Minimum Programme. With Sonia Gandhi at its helm,the body had acquired a great say in influencing policy decisions of the government,especially in the social sector. Congress leaders believe that any coordination mechanism without Sonias involvement would have limited potency or relevance just as the NAC had lost its teeth after she resigned.
