Punjab, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh have already made generous offers for professional students and states like Kerala and Himachal Pradesh have lent a helping hand in reviving the state's tourism.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi made these announcements while delivering the inaugural address at the Congress Chief Ministers Conclave here on Friday. She said all sections of the Jammu and Kashmir society should be engaged in dialogue to address the legitimate grievances of all sympathetically.

The Congress has also supported the PM's Pakistan initiative stating: We have all along believed that the doors of diplomacy and the windows of dialogue with Pakistan should always be kept open and alive.

Sonia deviated from the norm of earlier such meetings and attacked the Central government on lack of employment generation: "This is one of our principal indictments of the BJP-led NDA government".

Keeping apart time after dinner on Friday to discuss the coming assembly elections, Sonia has clearly indicated that the party is in an election mode and will unleash its attack on the Central government over rural poverty and employment.

In 1999, 2000 and in 2002 there has been an absolute decline in both public and private employment in the organized sector. The planning commission itself estimates that at current trends, unemployment rates for youth will increase to 16 per cent by the end of the Tenth Plan, she said.

In a clear message against soft Hindutva, Gandhi has congratulated Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot for arresting VHP leader Pravin Togadia. And in what could be interpreted as a warning against the Gujarat-like experiments with Hindutva by other Congress leaders, Sonia said, "Let us not look to what is electorally expedient".

As a poll plank the slogan, 'Congress ka haath, garib ke saath', has been further elaborated by Sonia seeking that her CMs implement rural poverty alleviation measures, employment generation schemes and to launch food-for-work programmes.

On this count, she wanted the CMs to emulate the Maharashtra model and enact a rural employment guarantee scheme and implement it in three to four years. She has asked the CMs to provide a timetable for eliminating the backlog of SC/ST quotas in government jobs, a welfare legislation for the unorganized sector and for the democratic and autonomous functioning of cooperatives.