Rahul Gandhi holds 2014 strategy session with Congress CMs, top leaders

Zee Media Bureau/Ritesh K srivastava

New Delhi: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Friday met with Chief Ministers of 12 states where his party is in power to chalk out the strategy for 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The day-long exercise that commenced in the morning saw full attendance of Congress Chief Ministers along with senior leaders AK Antony, Sushilkumar Shinde, P Chidambaram, Ahmed Patel, Jairam Ramesh, Digvijay Singh, Janardan Dwivedi, Kapil Sibal and KB Thomas. The meeting comes a fortnight after Congress suffered a big humiliation in the state Assembly elections held recently in four out of five major states. The meeting is being held at 15-Rakabganj Road, also known as Congress War Room, to work out poll strategies. The future course for the party in the wake of the passage of Lokpal and Lokayukta Bill will be discussed. The issue of price rise and the measures required to arrest the rising prices is also likely to be discussed during the day. Immediately after the results of the Assembly elections in Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh were out, Congress President Sonia Gandhi had listed price rise as an issue that could have led to the rout of the party in these states. The meeting will also discuss the food security issue. Several chief ministers from the 12 Congress-ruled states, including Haryana and Uttarakhand, were the first to launch the scheme, which UPA believed was a game changer for 2014 Lok Sabha polls. Rahul has been raising the issue of corruption frequently in his meetings at the party fora as well his interactions and public fora. At the FICCI meeting on December 21, Rahul had said that corruption is the "biggest issue bleeding people dry". Flagging the concerns over price rise, he had said beating inflation was the top priority. Congress has lost power in Delhi and Rajasthan in recent assembly elections. It is in power in Manipur, Mizoram, Assam, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra, Arunachal Pradesh, Kerala and Meghalaya. With PTI inputs