Congress calls meeting of its spokespersons on Monday

NEW DELHI: To improve its interface with the media in the run up to Lok Sabha elections, Congress has convened a two-days conclave of its spokespersons begining Monday, which will deliberate a strategy to propagate UPA's growth story among the masses.


The conclave will be inaugurated by party Vice President Rahul Gandhi and addressed by Union Minister P Chidambaram, Anand Sharma, Jairam Ramesh and Manish Tewari among others, on issues like food security bill, growth of Indian economy during UPA rule as compared to NDA reign and "positive" impact of manufacturing policy and FDI in India.

The party will also unveil its social platform 'Khidki' telling the 200-odd spokespersons from across the country to use it as a window of opportunity besides giving them lessons in the dos and don'ts of electronic media, a paper released by AICC said.

The programme will conclude with round-table discussions in ten groups organized only for spokespersons from states and NSUI and Youth Congress representatives on a host of current topics.

All states have been asked to send five spokespersons for the workshop---all below 55 years and the participants have been given a form in which they have to inform among other things whether any criminal case is pending against them.

Manish Tewari, who is Information and Broadcasting Minister, will teach the participants how to prepare for an effective debate or press briefing.

Tharoor, who was earlier Under Secretary General of UN for Communication and Public Information, will address them through video conferencing about communication challenges in the present-day media scenario.