A day after putting to rest the political saga woven by the Gandhi family Navjot Singh SidhuThe Congress’s Punjab in-charge, who “quitted out” last month due to differences with his friend-turned-enemy Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi, will chair a meeting of the party’s working committee to address another set of issues. Boiling trouble. organizational elections, upcoming assembly elections and the current political situation, including Lakhimpur Kheri scandal will be on top of the agenda.
The first meeting of the Congress’s top decision-making body, the Congress Working Committee (CWC), has been convened since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic to discuss key issues from certain quarters within the party, including some defections. are also included. recent past.
The meeting is also taking place amid uproar in state units of the Congress such as Punjab, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan where the party is in power. G-23 leaders had been demanding the holding of the CWC with Kapil Sibal last month, wondering who in the party was taking decisions in the absence of a full-time president, claiming that the G23 group of leaders was “G Huzoor”. 23 is not”. Former Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad had also written a letter to the Congress President asking him to convene a CWC meeting soon.
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During the meeting, the party leadership is also likely to decide on the schedule for the election of the new Congress chief. The party had decided in the CWC meeting held on January 22 that the Congress would have an elected president by June 2021, but it was deferred in the CWC meeting on May 10 in view of the COVID-19 situation.
The latest meeting is taking place in the wake of the Lakhimpur Kheri clashes on October 3, in which eight people, including four farmers, were allegedly crushed by an SUV belonging to Union Minister of State for Home Ajay Kumar Mishra’s convoy. . Ashish Mishra, son of Minister of State for Home Affairs, named in the FIR, was arrested by the Uttar Pradesh Police on Saturday in connection with the murder of four farmers.
The incident has given the Congress enough ammo to corner the BJP government and recapture the lost political space. Major issues like price rise, farmers’ protest and the country’s economic condition are likely to be discussed in the meeting.
The CWC meeting will also discuss some dissent notes rising within the party over defection and the party’s poor electoral fortunes. Congress Chief Ministers Ashok Gehlot (Rajasthan), Bhupesh Baghel (Chhattisgarh) and Charanjit Channi (Punjab) are expected to be present in the meeting.
Sonia Gandhi took over as interim Congress president in August 2019 after Rahul Gandhi resigned in the wake of the party’s Lok Sabha defeat in May 2019. There has been a demand from a section of Congress leaders to have a full-time and active party president. Plus an organizational change. The demand intensified after the party stormed in August last year over a letter to Sonia Gandhi by a group of 23 leaders including Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, Bhupinder Hooda, Prithviraj Chavan, Kapil Sibal, Manish Tewari and Mukul Wasnik. these issues.
(with PTI inputs)
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