Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Saturday constituted a consultative group, headed by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, to deliberate on current matters, including those related to the coronavirus outbreak, and formulate the party’s views on various issues.
The 11-member group also comprises former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, party’s chief spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala, general secretary in-charge organisation KC Venugopal and former union ministers P Chidambaram, Manish Tewari and Jairam Ramesh. The other members of the group are Praveen Chakravarty, Gaurav Vallabh, Supriya Shrinate and Rohan Gupta. The party has also urged the government to spell out steps it planned to take to mitigate the woes of migrant labourers stranded on the borders of different states and those of the farmers waiting to harvest crops. Congress has demanded state-specific special economic packages and urged the Centre to clear all pending dues, including the GST, to states to enable them to fight the pandemic.It further said the government must ensure phased lifting of the lockdown and coordinate with states to mitigate the sufferings of the poor.
