Cong Gearing Up To Mobilise Crowds For Rally

The Congress has asked its general secretaries and Working Committee members to go to various states to mobilise support for the party's all-India rally at the Ramlila Grounds in Delhi on March 6.

The rally is being organised to put forth the party's

demand that the Gujarat

and Uttar Pradesh governments withdraw their orders permitting state government employees to take part in the activities of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS).

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee may have have thought that the controversy had come to an end with the RSS declaration that it would not ask the Centre to lift a ban on its employees from joining the RSS. However, the Congress has decided to continue to protest till the Gujarat and UP governments withdraw their permission, according to Congress general secretary Oscar Fernandes, .

 

The Congress Parliamentary Party is also working out a separate plan to use the Parliament as a forum to raise issues relating to the Sangh's saffronisation agenda.

The current session being a Budget session would not deter the party from raising political issues which it considered extremely important. Floor coordination with other opposition parties is also likely.

"Our goal is to organise a massive rally in which Congress workers from neighbouring states participate in large numbers," Fernandes said.

The party is concentrating on Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Chandigarh, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh to mobilise crowds. Far flung states will have a token presence.

Fernandes said the rally would be followed by other programmes to be taken up by various state units of the party.

For the time being, the mass action will revolve around the Gujarat and UP government's orders on lifting the ban on RSS.

However, other important issues have also cropped up in recent times like the controversy relating to the film Water, the National Democratic Alliance government's resolve to review the Constitution of India.

"We are only waiting for the Assembly elections to be over and then we would engage the party in mobilisation," Congress general secretary Prabha Rao said.

Of late, the party leadership has been criticised for not doing enough to protest against the BJP's saffronisation agenda. Rao said it may not have been able to the live up to the expectations of people, but last month the party courted arrest in Delhi, in a movement led by Congress president Sonia Gandhi.