In election year, Cong plans to rice to occasion with YSR idea

In its manifesto for Karnataka Assembly election too, the Congress had announced 25 kg of rice at Rs 2 per kg to BPL cardholders, apart from other freebies.

It was, however, outdone by the BJP, which announced the same price for rice, but remained silent on its quantum while indicating that it could be more than that of the Congress.

Senior Congress leaders believed different political parties would try to outdo one another in offering freebies in the ensuing elections as well and, therefore, it wanted to take the lead by being the first to announce heavily subsidised foodgrains like rice or wheat in party-ruled states, according to sources.

According to the deliberations at Thursday's meeting, respective state units of the Congress would be asked to identify issues that could be raised in the Opposition-ruled states. Suggestions would be invited from all state units as to how to go about publicising the achievements of the UPA Government.

Meanwhile, AICC spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said on Friday that no timeline could be set for containing inflation as it was driven by global prices of Oil and other commodities. This came in response to a question at a press briefing about Prime Minister Manmohan Singh changing the timeline for containing inflation.

Last month, the PM had told reporters at Rashtrapati Bhavan that the Government’s measures to contain inflation would start showing results “in a couple of weeks”.

Addressing a function to mark the completion of four years of the UPA Government on Thursday, the PM, however, changed the timeline to “8-10 weeks”.