Congress Steering Committee Meet Today Ahead Of Party's Plenary Session, Gandhis Might Skip: Report

The 85th plenary session of the Congress party will begin on Friday in Raipur, Chhattisgarh. The session will start with the steering committee meeting.

New Delhi: The 85th plenary session of the Congress party will begin on Friday in Raipur, Chhattisgarh. The session will start with the steering committee meeting. However, ANI reported, citing sources, that there are speculations that the Gandhi family might stay away from the meeting so that they are not blamed if it decides not to hold the CWC elections. 

As per the report, Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi are likely to reach Raipur for the plenary on Friday afternoon. 

Speculations remain on whether there will be elections for the Congress Working Committee as there was to elect the party's national president last year. To decide the agenda of the plenary session, a meeting of the steering committee is supposed to be held on Friday morning. As per ANI, the meeting will also decide whether the elections for the Congress Working Committee are to be held or not. 

According to sources, ANI reported, most of the party leaders are not in favour of holding the elections and want the party president Kharge to be vested with the right to nominate members of the Congress Working Committee. 

Notably, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi has been a strong advocate for elections. 

If there are no elections, then 23 of the 25 CWC members will be nominated by the Congress president. Also, the Congress president and the leader of the party in Parliament get ex-officio membership of the CWC, the report said.

It added that as per the party constitution, of the remaining 23 members, 12 are to be elected and 11 nominated. So, the elections, if held, will be for 12 CWC members. However, if the proposal to nominate 11 CWC members is passed, the remaining 12 members will also be nominated by the president.

The meeting will be held a day after party spokesperson Pawan Khera was arrested by Assam police in a high drama over his alleged remarks on PM Narendra Modi's father.

In a hard-hitting statement on the arrest of Khera, Congress called the move "arbitrary and dictatorial" and a "cowardly attempt" to derail the AICC plenary in Raipur. Congress General Secretary KC Venugopal further said that Khera was arrested because Prime Minister Narendra Modi was scared of being questioned on his relationship with Gautam Adani.