Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi during the CWC meeting at 10 Janpath. Picture by Rajesh Kumar

New Delhi, May 31: The Congress Working Committee has given the Prime Minister a conditional go-ahead for raising fuel prices.

The message from 10 Janpath was that if a bitter pill was to be administered, it should be sugar-coated to the extent feasible, and the party should not tot up more political losses than what it has already suffered because of the rising inflation.

“It’s a tough call but the government has certain responsibilities and cannot live on just love and fresh air,” said a general secretary, summing up the Congress’s plight.

Recognising that a price rise was inevitable because of the global oil crisis and also the need to bail out the bleeding public sector oil companies, the Congress’s top policy-making committee nonetheless stressed to Manmohan Singh the importance of the “human angle”.

“Please try not to pass the burden to the consumer or at least minimise the burden,” was the refrain in the submissions made by over two dozen of the 35 CWC members who attended the nearly four-hour meeting at Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s residence.

Asked what view the party had firmed up on the oil price hike, Janardhan Dwivedi, the general secretary who briefed the media, said: “The Congress’s view doesn’t come into play. The Congress heads a coalition government and as such we cannot express a separate view on the issue. When price rise in general was discussed, some of us expressed our views on the oil hike also.”

The CWC signalled, loud and clear, that the Congress would not allow itself to be pulverised by the poll reverses, the most recent being in Karnataka. Dwivedi said Sonia would set up a small committee next week.

The committee, which sources said could be headed by Pranab Mukherjee, will analyse the causes of the defeats in nearly a dozen elections, identify the problem areas and prepare a blueprint for the Congress to craft its strategies for the coming polls.

The committee will have a 15-day deadline to submit its report. A resolution adopted by the CWC underlined the sense of urgency and desperation gripping the party with Lok Sabha elections just a year away. It said that while people’s expectations from political parties, particularly the Congress, had increased, just mounting an election campaign was “not enough to win”.

The resolution emphasised the need to convert the “massive mobilisation” in the campaigns into votes. “There has to be a sustained year-round contact with the people, to understand their hopes and aspirations and address their daily concerns,” it said.

Then it hit the nub of the problem: “This can only be done through an organisation which is strong and vibrant at the grassroots and which has clearly drawn lines of responsibility and accountability. To achieve this, the Congress has to build a living contact with all its members at each level and with the people.”

The resolution urged Congress members to “work as a unified, cohesive and motivated team”.