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Buoyed by tehelka.com's expose, the Congress is expected to finalise its strategy at its two-day plenary session beginning in Bangalore on March 17 and launch a decisive assault on the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition at the Centre and demand its resignation.
The session is being held in a politically surcharged atmosphere in the wake of the expose with the main opposition party already making it clear that it will not settle for anything less than the resignation of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.
An inquiry by a joint parliamentary committee could only follow the government's exit, it says.
Party spokesman S Jaipal Reddy said it was for the government to end the deadlock and vowed to continue the agitation in and outside Parliament for its ouster.
"We will continue to highlight the multi-ministerial scandal, both inside and outside Parliament... It is for the ruling front to resolve the deadlock. The moral responsibility is on the government to end the stalemate," Reddy remarked.
Referring to the Bharatiya Janata Party's rejection of the Opposition's demand for the government's resignation, he said the Congress was not surprised. But he made it clear that the party had never demanded the resignation of any individual minister, but of the government as a whole.
On the BJP's charge of corruption against leaders of previous Congress governments, Reddy said, "They were merely charges. Here is incontrovertible evidence. While the BJP chief admitted taking money, several defence officials have been suspended in this case."
Demanding action against those involved in the deals, Reddy asked how defence officials were suspended but no action was taken on the political front. "Why did BJP chief Bangaru Laxman have to resign and not others?"
Referring to the government's offer of inquiry, he said any inquiry at this stage would only be an exercise of "diversionary tactics".
Congress president Sonia Gandhi, leader of the Opposition in Parliament, is scheduled to arrive in Bangalore on Friday evening after which she will preside over a meeting of the working committee.
The CWC will give finishing touches to various draft resolutions, including the one on the political situation, which is expected to spell out the course of action to be adopted against the government.
The tone for the session has already been set by the party's aggressive posture in both Houses of Parliament. "What has come to the fore so far is only the tip of the iceberg," senior party politician Margaret Alva told reporters in Bangalore, indicating that the Congress would use every means available to put the National Democratic Alliance government on the mat as "national security is at stake".
In an apparent attempt to divide the NDA, she wanted the BJP's "secular" allies like the Telugu Desam Party and the Trinamul Congress to come out "sharply" against corruption.
The session assumes significance in view of the coming assembly elections in five states -- Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Assam and Pondicherry. The party is already in an upbeat mood in Kerala and Assam.
Much significance is being attached to what line the party will take in Bangalore on the issue of coalitions in the changed situation.
The Pachmarhi Declaration of the party in September 1998 had said that the Congress would consider coalitions only when absolutely necessary and that too on the basis of agreed programmes, which would not weaken the party or compromise its basic ideology.
The declaration had held the difficulties in forming single-party governments to be a 'transient phase' in the evolution of the country's polity. It had pledged to restore the party to a place of primacy in national affairs.
This is the first plenary session after Sonia Gandhi's massive victory in the party presidential election last year.
Being held at the Palace Grounds in Bangalore, it is the 81st plenary session of the party. The venue of the session has been named 'Rajiv Gandhi Nagar'. The session was earlier to be held in February, but was postponed following the earthquake in Gujarat.
The last plenary session of the party was held in Calcutta in 1997 when the late Sitaram Kesri was president.
In the economic resolution, the session is expected to make a scathing attack on the ad-hoc manner in which the Vajpayee government is going about divesting the government's stake in public-sector undertakings.
The session, being held in the backdrop of the BALCO controversy, will witness a strong demand from the party that the Centre issue a 'proper' divestment policy to ensure that it retains majority stake in all undertakings.
The party is expected to oppose the process of reverting management control of public-sector banks to private hands.
In the political resolution, the party is expected to attack the 'messy' handling of the situation in Jammu & Kashmir and the government's 'failure' in not doing 'proper homework' before declaring a ceasefire in the state.
It is also likely to fault the government's attempts to 'saffronise' education.
The party is also expected to demand to know the government's stand on the Ayodhya issue in view of the plans of some Sangh Parivar affiliates like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad to go ahead with the construction of a Ram temple there next year.
PTI
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