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Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi
Congress members on Friday made an impassioned plea to party chief Sonia Gandhi that she should gear up for 'capturing power at the Centre' as her 'dynamic leadership' made its participation in a coalition government 'irrelevant'.
Soon after senior party leader Arjun Singh moved the political resolution, speaker after speaker underscored the necessity of Congress being ready to form a majority government on its own at the Centre since the conditions, given the Vajpayee government's 'all-round incompetence', were congenial.
The draft political resolution said that the National Democratic Alliance government has 'frittered away all advantages that accrued to the country by their short-sighted and unscrupulous exercise of power for their own ends'.
During both the Pachmarhi and Bangalore plenary sessions, the Congress had resolved that while it would strive to form a government on its own at the Centre, it would also not be averse to cobbling up a coalition government.
Party leader Rajpal from Gujarat said that the recent riots in the state had revealed that not only was the Narendra Modi government of the Bharatiya Janata Party unwilling to contain them, but it actively assisted communal forces in helping its spread.
He appealed to Sonia that since her leadership had made the party capture power in 14 states from just three, she should be ready to form a government at Centre.
Veteran party leader from Maharashtra and former central minister Vasant Sathe emphasised that the Congress should come forward to announce that it would be forming the government on its own at the Centre.
"We don't need crutches," Sathe said.
Sathe said he wished to see Sonia as the country's prime minister before he died.
Senior party member Shankarsinh Vaghela lashed out against the Gujarat political leadership, calling it 'criminal' and said that Modi was out to finish the minorities in the country.
Senior party leader from Uttar Pradesh, Satyavrat Chaturvedi, made a strong case for rethinking Congress' participation in the Rabri Devi coalition government in Bihar.
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