Congress gets ready for polls

New Delhi: Finance Minister P Chidambaram's please-all Budget has set off celebrations within the Congress.

With the feeling that the Budget will go down well with the aam aadmi, the party is toying with the idea of early elections.

Congress is feeling good and it hopes that the farmers thronging 10 Janpath and Congress headquarters are feeling good enough to vote for the party which has been so generous to them having waived loans worth Rs 60,000 crore.

The Grand Old Party is behaving as if it has won the General Election already as Chidambaram's Budget has done much to uplift the sagging spirit of the party.

So, some Congress leaders are already pushing for early elections, maybe sometime later in the year.

So a high voltage publicity drive is being planned. Congress General Secretary and MP Rahul Gandhi will be travelling to non-Congress ruled states to pitch for his party, as the party believes that farmers and youth should get the cocktail right.

"The suffering India which was feeling it was left behind in the economic growth of the country is finding itself included in the future of our nation," Rohtak MP and Congress leader Deepender Singh Hooda says.

But now Congress allies are making their own political calculations. Parties like Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam (DMK) and Lalu Prasad Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) don't want immediate polls. Other allies, too, are in no mood to let the Congress walk away with the credit.

"Farmers who have taken money from moneylenders, who are doing this business illegally, are not supposed to repay a single penny," Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar says.

But after the celebrations, there is a sobering effect and the tough political assessment of the steps to be taken over the next few months.

Should the government go ahead with the civil nuclear deal with the US and bring about a final separation with the Left?

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