Cong in attack mode, plans rallies against BJP

With efforts to break Parliament logjam yielding no results so far, the Congress will take the 'coal-gate' battle against the BJP to the streets through an aggressive nation-wide campaign. HT reports.

With efforts to break Parliament logjam yielding no results so far, the Congress will take the 'coal-gate' battle against the BJP to the streets through an aggressive nation-wide campaign. The decision to take the BJP head on over this issue came after party president Sonia Gandhi lashed out at the principal opposition party's 'politics of blackmail'.

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In her address at the Congress parliamentary party meeting, Gandhi had remarked, "The BJP has made blackmail the bread and butter of their political strategy."

Furious with the BJP for not allowing Parliament to function and stalling a debate on the issue, Gandhi had also told her party colleagues that the organisation need not be defensive on the coal block allocation and should launch a counter-attack against the BJP.

The BJP too, had threatened to take its campaign against the Congress among the people.

Congress sources said it will adopt a two-pronged strategy to counter the BJP's "false propaganda" on coal allocation. Top UPA ministers such as P Chidambaram and AK Antony will travel to different cities and hold press conferences to clear the air. On the organisational level, rallies and meetings will be organised in which top party leaders will participate.

Union ministers such as Pawan Kumar Bansal, Kapil Sibal, Salman Khurshid and Sriprakash Jaiswal will also be part of the tour.

The Congress will highlight how various opposition-ruled states had actually opposed the auction of coal blocks and how these states are responsible for the allocations.

The campaign, slated to start from September 8 after the monsoon session ends, will go on for more than a week, according to a party source.

The Congress will also take on the CAG for its faulty report on the coal block allocation. PM Manmohan Singh had already pointed out that "the observations of the CAG are clearly disputable." Singh had also questioned CAG's computation of presumptive losses on a number of technical points.