Cong manifesto likely to be released on Friday

The Congress manifesto is in the last stages of being prepared and is likely to be released by party president Sonia Gandhi on Friday or Saturday.

The manifesto itself will be a short document but will have Vision Documents that will spell out the policy of the Congress on various sectors including the economy, health and women, and national security.

Both former Finance Ministers in the Congress ""Manmohan Singh and Pranab Mukherjee ""are out of town but the draft is expected to be hammered out tomorrow at a meeting.

A new deal for women, the gap between the NDA's claims and the reality on employment and emphasis on a mixed economy while claiming credit for the economic reforms programme ""which the Congress started and the BJP-led government is continuing""are likely to be dominant elements of the package.

However, it is on tricky issues like fiscal mismanagement by the states, a recipe for improving revenue collection by those states that are either Congress ruled or run by allies, and whether the Congress should still claim non alignment as the driving credo in foreign policy, that the draft may differ from the final version.

Suggestions invited and made by various quarters in the party have said non-alignment that was once upon a time, the mainstay of foreign policy objectives pursued by successive Congress governments, should continue to be part of its goals if the party is voted to power.

However, in the light of changed global realities and the isolationist connotations that non-alignment has come to acquire in a uni-polar world, a section of the party is in favour of playing down the concept.

Similarly, there continues to be a strong section in the party - including some chief ministers - that opposes unbridled imports, sees no merit in hitching the Congress bandwagon to 'the tide of urban consumerism and spending' and would like the party to politically continue to back the underdog and the poor.

But this sits ill with the party's commitment dismantling bureaucratic structures that hinder economic reform.The party is likely to emphasise the dominant role of the state in the social sector.

At a recent briefing, co-chairman of the economic cell, Arjun Sengupta accepted that the party considered the oil sector a strategic sector and was not in favour its disinvestment in this sector especially when the PSUs were profit-making. The Congress does not believe that the government should even have a golden share in oil sector PSUs.

On the issue of state finance, the party has seen differences within in the recent past. Karnataka Chief Minister SM Krishna had criticised the 11th Finance Commission recommendations on the grounds that it rewarded backwardness.

Party ideologue Jairam Ramesh had supported the recommendations and had disagreed with a chief minister belonging to his party.

Competing tendencies in the party need to be reconciled in the party document. What the final shape of the document will be remains to be seen.