Sonia asks party and Govt to pull up socks ahead of LS polls

The government was given a clear message by Gandhi that it is the party that brings it to power and those in the government should understand the difficulties of the organisation.

As a first step towards better coordination, the 'dialogue meeting' of the party top brass including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Rahul Gandhi, Cabinet Ministers and CWC members, saw the party chief announcing the setting up of a Coordination Group and sub-groups with specific tasks.

"With a year and half left for the Lok Sabha elections, both party and government will have to work cohesively together to ensure that we secure a renewed mandate," Gandhi said in her concluding remarks at the day-long meeting, whose message was the need for better coordination and understanding between the party and the government.

"Being Congress workers, we are members of the same family... It is but natural that sometimes occasions may come when we feel the need for a balance between the responsibilities of the party and the government," she said.

In a bid to counter the adverse fall out on account of the tough economic measures taken by the government, the meeting saw a majority of the leaders demanding a raise in the cap of six LPG cylinders per family to 12, along with a demand for a populist budget with significant Income Tax sops and programmes to reach out to all sections.

At the same time the government's difficulties in pandering to populism came clear in the speeches of the Prime Minister and Finance Minister P Chidambaram, who both said that the primary challenge was to raise the growth and cut down fiscal deficit for which difficult decisions were necessary.

Their speeches gave no indication of how the government will be able to meet the populist demand when the situation calls for slashing government expenditure and raise revenues. (MORE)