The Congress has decided to send "coordinators" to propagate the party's message across the country

Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday turned down a proposal to have "preraks" (motivators) for conducting the party's outreach activities across the country.

There was consensus at a meeting of Congress's top brass chaired by Sonia Gandhi to continue with the old system of having trainers who would further be tasked with the responsibility of propagating the party's ideology and articulating its views on a range of issues.

Sources in the Congress told news agency Press Trust of India that a proposal to have "preraks" was made at the Congress meeting of general secretaries, in-charges, PCC (Pradesh Congress COmmittee) chiefs and CLP (Congress Legislative Party) leaders on Thursday by Sachin Rao, who is Congress's in-charge of training.

The proposal invited instant objections from many Congress leaders starting with Mukul Wasnik, who said it sounded too similar to the word 'Pracharak'.

RSS, the BJP's ideological mentor, has a system of 'Pracharaks'. Under its cadre-based system, the RSS lets 'pracharaks' connect with people at the grass roots level.

Sonia Gandhi is learnt to have acknowledged Mr Wasnik's objection and rejected the term 'prerak' in favour of the already used word "trainer-coordinator".

The Congress now plans to have 'coordinators' across the country who will propagate the party's message in the area he/she is assigned to.

