Cong may launch food scheme on yet another 'Gandhi birthday'

New Delhi, July 10: The Congress is planning to gift the food security scheme on August 20, the birth anniversary of late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. The much talked-about scheme is considered to be a strong bid by the party to woo the electorate ahead of the crucial 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

Sources said Congress president Sonia Gandhi is likely to meet party chief ministers and top leaders on Saturday to finalise a strategy for a grand launching of the food security law that was brought into effect through an ordinance last week, drawing flak from various opposition parties.

The scheme promises cheap food grain for 67 per cent of the country's population.

The upcoming meeting will feature besides the president herself, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Vice-President Rahul Gandhi, senior ministers like A K Antony and P Chidambaram and AICC general secretaries who are in charge of organisational affairs in the states.

One of the main thrust in the programme will be to ask the chief ministers of the party-ruled states that the law is properly implemented in their respective states. The leaders will also take care of the fact that the party rightly tackles the opposition parties who have criticised the scheme through its sound implementation.

For many observers, the Congress is aiming to repeat the 2009 feat, when it had implemented the job guarantee and massive loan waiver schemes, by means of the food scheme this time. Those two schemes had worked in wooing the rural and poor constituencies last time.

OneIndia News