Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Sunday afternoon started her two-day, double-role Kerala visit meant basically for energising the Congress and its allies before the coming lok Sabha elections and to put an end to the group wars in the Congress amidst allegations that millions of rupees of public money was being spent on her political visit.
Sonia’s tasks during the two-day visit were inauguration of certain populist programmes of the Congress-led UDF Government in the State in the capacity of the chairperson of the National Advisory Council and to participate in Congress programmes as the party president and UPA chairperson.
Though the Congress and UDF claimed that Sonia’s visit was to inaugurate certain programmes of the Government and the Congress, her main mission was to try to establish peace in the group-ridden State party unit where its chief and Chief Minister Oommen Chandy were engaged in a protracted group war and to put an end to the UDF partners’ complaints.
Complaints on the lavish spending by the Government for the Sonia visit have come up from various quarters. It is said that lakhs of rupees had been spent by the Government on publicity alone. Congress sources said that lakhs of folders have been printed while scores of huge boards had been erected across the State for the purpose.
Opposition leader VS Achuthanandan has already asked the Chief Secretary to make the Congress pay the entire expenses being incurred by the Sonia visit as there could be no formal connection between her and the Government programmes. He said that the visit was to attend the Congress’s party campaign.
The Government claim was that Sonia was in Kerala to launch its Zero landless Kerala and Arogya Kiranam programmes but Achuthanandan pointed out that she was not occupying any official position that qualified her to inaugurate these programmes. Public money could not be used for the Congress’ campaigns, he said.
Sonia had two sets of programmes in Kerala in two different roles to attend on the two days of her visit. The two programmes connected with the Government were the UDF regime’s Zero landless Kerala scheme of distributing three cents of land each to nearly 300,000 landless people and the Arogya Kiranam scheme which she inaugurated on Sunday evening.
The inauguration of the Arogya Kiranam project by Sonia had become controversial even before her arrival as it had in fact been inaugurated by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy months back at a function in Thiruvananthapuram. However, Health Minister VS Sivakumar of the Congress claimed that the earlier programme was only the concept launch.
She inaugurated the Arogya Kiranam programme on Sunday evening after opening a new research wing at the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Development Studies set up by the State Congress at Neyyar in Thiruvananthapuram district. Sonia also unveiled a statue of former Chief Minister R Sankar in Thiruvananthapuram on Sunday evening.
Sonia met leaders of UDF constituents on Sunday night to discuss their complaints on the groupism in the Congress which had been threatening to destabilise the UDF. KPA Majeed, general secretary of the Muslim league, second largest party in the UDF, had said that Sonia’s visit was the last resort for salvaging the coalition.
Senior leaders including Chief Minister Chandy, State Congress president Ramesh Chennithala, Union Minister Shashi Tharoor and members of the State Cabinet received Sonia who landed at the IAF’s technical area in Thiruvan-anthapuram on Sunday afternoon. She would leave for Mysore at 1.40 pm on Monday.
...showers praise on PM
Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Sunday showered praises on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh bringing some relief to him in the context of the hurt he had to suffer due to party vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s outburst against his Government’s “complete nonsense” over the Ordinance on convicted politicians.
In an obvious move to assuage the feelings of the Prime Minister in the critical context, Sonia said that the UPA Government under the leadership of Dr Manmohan Singh had been able to uplift millions of marginalised people through its social welfare programmes. “The marginalised sections in the society face discrimination at every level. The UPA Government led by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has lifted millions of them through its flagship programmes,” she said while inaugurating a new research wing of the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Development Studies near Thiruvananthapuram on Sunday evening.
“We need to do much more to empower the poor and marginalised.” She said lauding the efforts of the Prime Minister by saying that India was rapidly achieving progress and development under him. The prime concern of the UPA Government had always been to develop the nation while taking care to ensure inclusive growth, Sonia said at the programme. However, she refrained from discussing politics in detail in her speech.