A big churning is taking place within the Congress over the approach towards post-liberalisation economic policies.

The sub-group on Economic Affairs, chaired by former Finance Minister P Chidambaram, is getting a number of suggestions on changing the economic outlook of the party.

The crux of the majority of the suggestions is that the party’s economic policies will have to be “left of the Centre” again.

The sub-group will prepare the draft economic resolution of the AICC plenary scheduled to begin here on Friday. The plenary will pass the draft after a debate.

Sources in the panel told BusinessLine that the intensity of the debate could be similar to the 1959 Nagpur session of the AICC that alienated the proponents of the free-market from the Congress.

Opposing the Left-ward shift spearheaded by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who had taken over the mantle soon after the Nagpur session from UN Dhebar, C Rajagopalachari and NG Ranga had resigned and formed Swatantra Party. The Congress approved liberalisation in 1991 when Narasimha Rao was Prime Minister.

At the 1992 Tirupati session of the AICC, leaders such as Vayalar Ravi and Rajesh Pilot again challenged the economic resolution favouring reforms, but was defeated.

The debate is focussed mainly on two issues. First, the party believes the redistribution of wealth has stopped under the Narendra Modi regime, and second, it wants a “rethinking” on the “free economy” after 27 years of its “full” implementation.

Rising inequality

“Thanks to Sonia Gandhi, we had programmes such as MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act), right to food, NRHM (National Rural Health Mission), Right to Education and so on. But now, the Modi regime has either killed or partially withdrawn funds to such programmes. This is expanding the gulf between the rich and the poor in the country,” a member in the panel told BusinessLine on condition of anonymity.

The inequality, the member said, is another issue that bothers the party leadership.

“The mode of production has changed from socialistic to corporate in the past few years. Public sector undertakings have suffered in this change in mode of production. So a debate among us is: how to make the policies pro-people. The plenary will do a rethinking on the 27 years of liberalisation,” the member added.

Another insider said that on issues such as GST and demonetisation, the party could not push its points because of the “rigidity” of certain leaders. “The experience of 27 years tells us that there has to be a rethinking. The people, not the corporate houses, should be the focus,” the member said and claimed that Congress president Rahul Gandhi has also been supportive of change.

“He talks about farmers’ distress. He talks about unemployment. He talks about corruption by big companies. He is leading us to a change,” the leader added.

Chidambaram is chairman of the panel and Jairam Ramesh is its convenor. Senior Congress leaders such as AK Antony, Anand Sharma, Veerappa Moily and Pallam Raju, and seven others are members.

“It is not an easy task to change the views of many senior leaders. All the recent AICC sessions have seen a sentence in the economic resolutions that the party is committed to reforms. But this plenary is set to give us a new direction,” a confident young leader of the Congress added.