As corporate-backing and media favouring BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi's poll campaigns held centrestage at the Congress Campaign Committee meeting on Thursday, party president Sonia Gandhi exhorted the leaders to be combative by going all out to fight the general elections.

The meeting chaired by Sonia was attended by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, party vice president Rahul Gandhi and top senior leaders. Members pointed out that many television channels are favouring the BJP. Sources said Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari talked about the role of the corporate sector and media in Modi’s election campaign.

On a day when two important leaders — BJP MP Karuna Shukla and actor-turned-MP of TRS M Vijayashanti — joined Congress, senior party leader Satyavrat Chaturvedi made a strong plea against giving tickets to those tainted and turncoats. Chaturvedi emphasised that giving tickets to tainted would create more problems for the party already facing a difficult election.

Former Union Minister Kumari Selja lamented that Congress did not pursue the issue of affirmative action in private sector to a logical conclusion. Some leaders wanted tickets to be finalised as early as possible while some underlined the need for using decent language even in their attacks against the Opposition.

Union Minister Salman Khurshid, who raked a controversy with his "impotent" remarks about Modi, did not turn up for the meeting. So did Finance Minister P Chidamb-aram, former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and AICC general secretary Mukul Wasnik, who too are members of the campaign committee.

Rahul is expected to go on a campaign blitzkrieg and there is a view that he should be addressing rallies in at least 300 parliamentary constituencies. Further, to reach out to the masses, the party also decided to hold week-long 'padyatra' in all lok Sabha constituencies before the announcement of the poll schedule.

The 50-member Campaign Committee set up a few days back has Prime Minister Manmohan Singh along with several Union ministers like A K Antony, Sushilkumar Shinde, P Chidambaram, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Salman Khurshid, Kamal Nath, Anand Sharma and Jairam Ramesh.