By Abdul hafiz lakhani Ahmedabad
After almost six decades, a meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), the party’s highest decision-making body, will be held in Mahatma Gandhi’s Gujarat. All the top party leaders will attend the meet here on February 28.
Rahul, his mother and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and newly-inducted general secretary for East Uttar Pradesh Priyanka Gandhi will be present at the CWC meet as well as the Jan Sankalp Rally to be held later in the day.
The list of attending leaders includes AICC treasurer Ahmed Patel, leader of opposition in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, former central ministers like Anand Sharma, P Chidambaram, Mukul Wasnik, K C Venugopal, Ambica Soni, Ghulam Nabi Azad, A K Antony, Raghuveer Meena and Kumari Shailja, Harish Rawat, former CM of Uttarakhand, Tarun Gogoi, former CM of Assam and Oomen Chandy, former Kerala CM.
Top party leaders, besides Chief Ministers of Congress-ruled states will arrive at the Sardar Patel International Airport around 9 am on February 28. They will visit the Gandhi Ashram at Sabarmati and thereafter pay their homage to the CRPF troopers killed in the Pulwama attack at the Martyrs Monument at the Shahi Baug,
The CWC, the highest decision making body of the Congress party will discuss poll strategy and the roadmap for the upcoming Lok Sabha election.This will be the first time that the people of Gujarat will see Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi from the same podium. It is going to be the biggest rally in recent times.
The decision by the top Congress leadership to hold the CWC meeting in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state is being seen as a deft strategic move ahead of crucial elections, more so with party chief Rahul Gandhi trying to take on Narendra Modi directly on a series of issues, including the controversy around the Rafale fighter jet deal.
The previous CWC meeting was held in BJP-ruled Maharashtra’s Wardha district. The meeting also marked the beginning of Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary celebrations. Senior party leaders said that Gujarat was an obvious choice given that it was also the home state of Gandhi.
Determined to ensure the Opposition party does not hog the complete limelight in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s prized home state, the BJP will have Modi addressing lakhs of party workers through video-conferencing across 450 centres in Gujarat under its “Mera Booth Sabse Majboot” programme. Nationally the address will cover 15,000 places.
While Prime Minister Modi’s national video conference would begin at 12.30 pm on Thursday, Chavda informed that Congress’s Sankalp Rally at Trimandir in Adalaj, located between Gujarat’s political capital Gandhinagar and commercial capital Ahmedabad, would start from 3 pm after the all-importamt CWC meeting.
