New Delhi: Top leaders of the Congress party are meeting in Surajkund near Delhi for a day-long brainstorming session to discuss the current political situation and fine-tune strategy for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The ‘Samwvad Baithak’ (dialogue meeting) comes at a critical juncture when the party is facing tough challenges at political and economic fronts.

The session will focus discuss three topics – present political situation, economic challenges and status of implementation of 2009 party manifesto.

All party leaders including party president Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and other party leaders and ministers left have behind their red beacon cars and travelled from the Congress HQ in centeral Delhi to Surajkund in Haryana in two buses.

Each of the 70 delegates (35 party leaders and 35 ministers) present at the conclave has been given a copy of the 2009 Congress manifesto for easy reference, reports said.

The Samvad Baithak will virtually set the agenda for the larger brainstorming at Chintan Shivir, which is likely to be organised in January next year. Sources told that the Shivir will be held at Rajasthan.

During today’s talks, there is also likelihood that the party may discuss the issue of alliances in the states. The dialogue session is happening before the much-talked about organisational reshuffle in which the in-charges of many states are to be replaced.

The dialogue session comes after the public meeting here on November 4, which saw Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Rahul strongly backing the economic reform measures initiated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.