A day-long meeting of Congress Chief Ministers, convened by party president Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday at the AICC headquarters here, will focus on the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government’s “anti-poor, anti-farmer” policies and the negative impact it is having on the nine States that it is in power.
As has been visible in recent days, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi will play a key role at the mini-conclave that will be the first Congress Chief Ministers’ conference called after the UPA lost power in 2014.
Topping the agenda, a senior party functionary told The Hindu , will be listing the anti-people programmes and policies of the BJP-led NDA government, including its efforts to amend the 2013 Land Acquisition Act, its neglect of the brewing agricultural crisis and the cuts in budgetary allocations for education, health and key social welfare programmes.
These cuts will be a significant part of the discussions as Mr. Gandhi, party sources said, sees the Congress’s economic policies as being geared differently from that of the BJP: “The Congress is a party of the poor; the BJP represents the corporates – that is the theme that he wishes to emphasise,” said a senior party functionary.
