The Congress reckons it has won the first round in the one-upmanship that drought is coming to represent. The Centre announced Rs 714 crore towards drought relief last night, after Congress president Sonia Gandhi, along with chief ministers of the party-ruled states, said she would meet Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on the issue.
The Congress today presented a 11-point memorandum to the Prime Minister, which includes a demand for drought to be declared a national calamity. It also calls for the setting up of an inter-ministerial crisis management group similar to the one set up during the 1987-88 drought.
Internally, the party is telling its cadres that the Centre has been forced to respond under pressure from Gandhi.