The Veerappa Moily-headed “Group to Look Into Future Challenges”, formed by Congress president Sonia Gandhi to set the agenda for the party and also monitor implementation of various party and government plans and policies, will soon prepare its strategy to move forward.

“We had an informal, omnibus discussion today to set the agenda, and as soon as it is ready we will put it up for Ms Gandhi’s approval so that we can move forward fast,” Mr Moily told Deccan Herald on Thursday after the first meeting of the group.

Group members Rahul Gandhi, Vayalar Ravi, Anand Sharma, Prithviraj Chavan, Mukul Wasnik, Salman Khursheed, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sandeep Dikshit, Sachin Pilot and Jairam Ramesh attended the meeting. Digvijay Singh and G Parameshwar were not present.

Party needs exercise
Explaining the purpose behind setting up of the group, Mr Moily said: “The party needs to carry out such an exercise so that we can have continuous in-depth study of various programmes of the government so that there is no gap between policies and implementation.”

In its first meeting, the group had a general discussion on various subjects that need to be addressed for rejuvenation of the party. “We discussed about areas that need to be addressed and also how to recapture the space we have lost,” he said.

The issues taken up by the group would be the ones that are of major concern to the common man, he added.
The two-hour-long meeting had nothing to do with the possibility of early elections, he asserted, adding that “elections or no elections, we need to keep doing such exercises”.

Earlier, interacting with the media after the meeting, he had said: “Challenges are in the short, medium and long terms. We have a long innings to go and we don’t discuss only elections. Incidentally, election is also part of it.”
He said the group’s agenda would not clash with that of neither the Department of Policy Planning and Coordination, of which too he is the head, nor the manifesto committee, of which he is a member.