New Delhi: Posters for the reconstituted Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting came up in Hyderabad on Friday, news agency ANI reported. Hoardings featuring Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi, MP Rahul Gandhi and general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra could be seen in the Telangana capital a day before the meeting.
The inaugural meeting of the new-look CWC will be held on Saturday. The meeting, to be chaired by the party’s national president Mallikarjun Kharge in Hyderabad, will discuss the party’s strategy for the upcoming Assembly elections in five states and the Lok Sabha polls next year. Congress leader and former Union Minister Sachin Pilot found a place in the reconstituted CWC announced earlier while the likes of party seniors Anand Sharma and Shashi Tharoor, who were part of the disgruntled Group of 23 that sought organisational changes in the party, were also drafted into the panel.
The committee is also likely to hold discussions on launching a Bharat Jodo Yatra 2.0, closer to the next general elections, after the success of the previous one from Kanyakumari to Kashmir, news agency PTI reported quoting sources.
Rejigged by the Congress national president himself, the party’s top decision-making panel comprises 39 regular members who will take part in the inaugural meeting on Saturday. However, there will be extended session of the CWC later that will include all state party chiefs and Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leaders, PTI reported.
On September 17 evening, which is to be marked as Telangana National Integration Day, the Congress will hold a mega rally near Hyderabad, PTI reported, adding that the grand old party is expected to announce five guarantees for the poll-bound state ahead of the next Assembly elections.
The decision to hold the inaugural meeting of the reconstituted CWC in the Telangana capital is possibly aimed at sending a clear message to the people of the state that the party is keen to not only put up a stiff challenge to the ruling BRS and Opposition BJP in the ensuing polls but will fight to win, the news agency reported.
Further according to sources, poll preparations in five states - Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram -as well as a plan to take on the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the next general elections will feature prominently in the discussions at the CWC meeting.
The meeting will take place at a time when many of the opposition parties have formed the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (I.N.D.I.A) to put up a combined challenge to the BJP in the next Lok Sabha elections.
The joint resolution, issued by the bloc on September 1, after its third meeting in Mumbai, said the parties would contest polls together “as far as possible”, and the seat sharing arrangements in different states would be finalised “at the earliest”.
Exuding confidence that the Congress will form government in Telangana, party leader KC Venugopal, as quoted by ANI, said, "Tomorrow we will hold the first CWC meeting in Hyderabad in which upcoming election preparations will be discussed. We are very sure that we are going to form government in five states including Telangana."
Ahead of the meeting of the reconstituted panel, Congress leader Sachin Pilot hailed the reconstituted CWC as “very balanced”, with a “good mix” of youth and experience.
"I look forward to these meetings in Hyderabad. The working committee will work with renewed vigour and energy…and this augurs very well for the Congress' future," Pilot said, as quoted by PTI.
According to PTI, the Congress’s policy on seat sharing for the Lok Sabha polls could also come up for discussions during the meeting apart from firming up plans to corner the BJP and other regional outfits, including the BRS in Telangana on issues of corruption, besides national issues of inflation, unemployment and the Adani issue.