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Updated: Apr 29, 2020 22:56 IST

Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi is gearing up to launch a series of video-dialogues with public intellectuals, and the first to feature in this series is renowned economist and India’s former Central bank governor Raghuram Rajan.

The dialogue with Rajan, which is over an hour long, includes a detailed discussion on the state of the economy and how to revive it in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. The discussion has been done in English via video-conferencing, Congress functionaries told Hindustan times.

Congress’ social media head Rohan Gupta told Hindustan Times that Gandhi will be speaking to Rajan and the video will be launched tomorrow. “He (Gandhi) will be speaking to Raghuram Rajan. The discussion is about the fallout of coronavirus crisis and how it will impact the economy. They also discuss how to convert it into an opportunity,” Gupta added.

“This is the first in a series of videos dialogues that Gandhi will be conducting with intellectuals, including public health specialists and activists working on the grass root level across the world,” a Congress functionary said.

The dialogue is pre-recorded and will be disseminated by the Congress on social media over the next couple of days.

“This is different,” said a second Congress functionary. “He (Gandhi) is not talking about the BJP at all. The entire conversation revolves around the state of the economy.”

The two discuss solutions that may be viable in the ‘post-Covid world’, the second functionary added with the primary issue being the economy of the country.

“States are facing huge losses,” said the first functionary. “The issue of loss of revenue, GST payments not coming in, all play a part in the discussion.”

A slew of changes in the party has recently been interpreted by many Congress leaders as a sign of Gandhi’s return to presidency. Most recently, Congress interim chief Sonia Gandhi constituted an 11-member consultative group under former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s leadership to deliberate on matters related to the Covid-19 pandemic and to formulate the party’s views on them.

The group also includes Rahul Gandhi, Randeep Singh Surjewala, KC Venugopal, P Chidambaram, Manish Tewari, Jairam Ramesh, Praveen Chakravarty, Gaurav Vallabh, Supriya Shrinate and Rohan Gupta. This is the first time Rahul Gandhi has become a member of a party panel since he stepped down as the Congress chief last year. The group has been holding extensive meetings and offering suggestions to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government on how to address the Covid-19 crisis.