Undeterred by the expose of various scams at the Centre and in Maharashtra, the ruling Congress party has launched a plan to train its leaders and partymen to counter the charges by aggressively taking up various flagship programmes and schemes with voters. The Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) will organise a day-long workshop on December 1 in Mumbai for the purpose.
MPCC President Manikrao Thakre told Business Standard: “The idea is to explain the nature and relevance of various programmes and schemes of the central government in particular and also the Congress-led Maharashtra government to our party members.”
MPCC has invited party legislators, general secretaries and senior leaders for the workshop, to be inaugurated by Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan.
Thakre said Union ministers including P Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal, Salman Khurshid and Manish Tewari will explain the Centre’s initiatives in various sectors. “They will also explain the features of the revised land acquisition bill, the ambitious Food Security Act, the necessity of FDI (foreign direct investment) in the retail sector and steps taken by the Centre to give a push for infrastructure development,” said Thakre. He added the proposed workshop was part of MPCC’s initiative to gear up for the elections to the Lok Sabha and state Assembly in 2014.
Thakre said party leaders and members would be assigned specific districts and regions to travel and reach out to voters and explain the achievements of the central as well as state governments. They would also be trained to counter the Opposition’s misinformation campaign.


