'Cash scheme will bring Cong to power in 2 general polls'

New Delhi, Dec 14:

General Secretary

on Friday said the direct cash transfer

, if implemented successfully, could help Congress come back to power in the next two general elections. Gandhi was speaking to party chiefs of 51 districts across the country where the scheme is set to be implemented from Jan 1.

Gandhi, who has been given the responsibility to guide the party in the run-up to the next general elections, spoke to the district party leaders for nearly two hours and briefed them on the know-how of the scheme.

Union Ministers P Chidambaram and Jairam Ramesh, who had unveiled the project recently and termed it as a 'political game changer', were also present in the meeting. Ramesh later told reporters that Gandhi said the introduction of the scheme would eliminate corruption in the disbursement of pension, scholarships and wages under the NGREGA scheme.

He said of Re 1 that the government disburses for each individual beneficiary, only 15 paise actually reach the destination. According to Ramesh, all the corruption in the intermediate stages would be eliminated and the beneficiaries would completely benefit once the direct cash transfer scheme is put into practice.

The Congress, which has been deeply tainted by various corruption schemes, is heavily banking on its "aap ke paise, aap ke haath" scheme to reap political gains in the next elections. Rahul Gandhi reportedly asked the district party chiefs to closely monitor the implementation of the scheme in their respective areas and ease out the initial problems.

Another Congress leader Janardhan Dwivedi, however, said that the scheme was just to effect a change in the system and there was no politics involved in it.

Ramesh, meanwhile, said the Aadhar card, which is the basis for identifying the beneficiaries, has already been issued to more than 80% of the eligible persons in most of the 51 districts where the scheme will be rolled out from January and the remaining 20% will be covered soon.

He said the idea of supplying items through the public distribution system under the cash transfer scheme would not be considered in the near future, at least for the next three years.

OneIndia News