Congress ministers to hear workers' cases at party office

Long after it became fashionable for Congressman to opt for "party above ministership" Congress chief Sonia Gandhi wants the message to hit home strongly.

Congress ministers in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government have been asked to be available two days in a week at the All-India Congress Committee (AICC) office at 24, Akbar Road.

According to party spokesman Anand Sharma, the suggestion had been made a long while ago, just after the Manmohan Singh government took charge. "It was felt that the party workers and the party itself would gain from this kind of an interaction," said Sharma.

The Congress chief took to the suggestion and has directed Sharma and others to work out the modalities for the party-government interface. According to party sources, the idea took off from a brainstorming session after the surprise victory of the Congress in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections.

"It was felt that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a cadre-based party, lost as the workers could not relate to the ministers in their government. The feeling that ministers considered themselves separate from the party set up had taken root," said an AICC general secretary.

In fact, the BJP too, towards the end of its tenure tried its hand at this kind of an interaction. A few ministers including Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Arun Jaitley, Karia Munda, Vinod Khanna and Jual Oram did put in some time under the scheme, but when party workers found that they were just there to mark attendance, the plan fizzled out.

"We are trying to find a way in which grievances of party workers can be addressed, some of whom find it difficult to access ministers," said a Congress office-bearer. "The BJP experiment is very much on our minds," he added.

With Sonia Gandhi preferring to be Congress chief rather than the Prime Minister, the AICC had acquired a far more glamourous patina than South Block.

According to some Congress leaders, the ministers are eager for the "outreach programme" to start, in order to score a few brownie points on the "sacrifice scale" themselves.