New Delhi, March 29: Congress chief Sonia Gandhi today held a meeting to firm up the party line on special economic zones to ensure there is no repeat of Nandigram and Kalinga Nagar.

Congress sources said Sonia, in consultation with foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee and commerce and industries minister Kamal Nath, decided that her party would adopt the “middle line”.

It would contain elements of the stand she had espoused at the Congress chief ministers’ conference in Nainital last September without jettisoning SEZs altogether.

The government and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh were of the view that freezing SEZs might impair the reforms process. So, the “middle line” would stress on relief and rehabilitation and working out a policy based on a blueprint prepared by the National Advisory Council, which Sonia used to head.

The sources said that after the Nandigram bloodbath, the Congress decided that before acquiring land for any economic or industrial project, land-holders would “properly” be taken into confidence. There would be several rounds of discussions aimed at some sort of consensus-building.

Local Congress workers would be engaged in the exercise and encouraged to start “campaigns” involving the areas’ residents so that the state concerned would not be accused of acting unilaterally.

The meeting on SEZs was followed by one on the demand for withdrawal of troops in Jammu and Kashmir. The Congress’s state ally, the People’s Democratic Party, has been campaigning for a pullout.

Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad was present at the meeting.

Sources ruled out the possibility of an immediate blanket withdrawal of soldiers. The PDP is to be told that a “wider consensus” among the Valley’s political parties would have to be evolved before taking any step, they said.

At best, the government could announce the formation of a high-level committee to look into the demand and try and buy time with the PDP.