Congress is gearing itself up for the All India Congress Committee plenary session to be held on the outskirts of Delhi on December 18,19 and 20.
Interestingly, this is not being done surreptitiously or secretly but is a decision taken by senior AICC general secretaries who feel there is nothing wrong with the practice. This though is a first of its kind move by the AICC leaders.
As the All India Congress Committee Plenary session started in New Delhi, the party rank and file hoped that the Congress high command would be able to clear up the mess surrounding the party in the wake of the various scams surrounding it.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and former All India Congress Committee chief Sonia Gandhi will address leaders in Nava Raipur, as well as political, economic and international affairs resolutions will be deliberated upon at the party's 85th plenary session on Saturday.
The plenary session in Chhattisgarh's Nava Raipur will start from February 24 and is expected to be attended by around 15,000 delegates.
Rather unusually, for it was a party forum, China cropped up several times during the discussions at the All-India Congress Committee plenary session at Burari in Delhi. And references to the country were not in socialist solidarity, either.
The Congress is likely to hold its plenary session in Mumbai or in some other part of Maharashtra in December, indicate highly placed congress sources.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday conducted raids at over a dozen locations in Chhattisgarh including at premises linked to state Congress leaders as part of an ongoing probe into the alleged coal levy scam, officials said.
Only in the event of the RSS managing to force Modi into accepting a consensual candidate, will the party not continue to 'being' the 'next Congress', observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Bihar Congress chief Chowdhary Mahboob Alam Kaiser expelled B N Sharma, Abdul Fatah, S K Tiwari, Shakeel Alam and R N Chowdhary from the primary membership of the party for six years, party spokesperson Prem Chandra Mishra told PTI.
The government is introducing an ordinance to constitute an extraordinary anti-corruption mechanism in deference to a five-point agenda for its battle against corruption enunciated by Congress President Sonia Gandhi in her inaugural address to the All India Congress Committee plenary session in New Delhi on December 19, stressing that there should be no tolerance towards corruption or misconduct.
Thorat had last week resigned as CLP leader after criticising Maharashtra unit chief Nana Patole's style of functioning.
The interim panel headed by him would take the place of the Congress Working Committee, the apex decision-making body, till a new CWC is formed after Kharge's election is ratified at the party plenary.
Implementation of sports bill in 6 months, regulation of participation standard safeguard: Mandaviya
Naik, 71, is the first senior Congress leader to resign after Rahul Gandhi announced on Sunday in his concluding speech that he wants to give the younger generation a chance to come forward and lead the party.
Will Sonia Gandhi finally take a decision she has put off for so long, asks Rajeev Sharma.
Legislative Assembly election-bound Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand will be exempted from this exercise
To highlight alleged misgovernance by the present regime, its first nationwide campaign ahead of the 2024 parliamentary elections.
The election of Tytler as an AICC delegate drew strong reactions from Delhi's ruling AAP and the BJP, which said it exposed the opposition party's character of creating division and chaos in the country.
The Congress Working Committee will meet on Sunday to discuss the outcome of the assembly elections in five states where the party received a drubbing, sources said.
Kharge said that while there are very responsible people in the party who were doing their duty, some people had assumed that lack of responsibility will be ignored.
The mood in the party seems to be in favour of not delaying any further the launch of the high-profile first-time parliamentarian into active politics.
The former Union minister asserted that an objective analysis of the political situation will lead to the conclusion that the Congress has to be the "pole" around which Opposition unity in the 2024 Lok Sabha election can be built.
Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Thursday virtually ruled out contesting CWC polls if the party decides to hold them, saying he is not considering any further elections after having fought the AICC presidential polls and it is "for others to step forward".
'If they are not, then the Modi government should order a JPC immediately.'
The Congress on Monday promised that a government led by it will conduct a nationwide caste census and implement 33 per cent reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies at the earliest, including adequate representation for women belonging to the OBC community.
Rahul Gandhi is learnt to have taken All India Congress Committee general secretaries and state in-charges to task for failing to implement the Sonia Gandhi-driven Burari agenda on corruption. He was also unhappy about their failure to spread awareness about the Centre's flagship programmes in states ruled by Bharatiya Janata Party and to implement the Congress president's five-point action programme, outlined in her speech at the party plenary in Burari.
Baghel went on to allege that the RSS brought "aggressive Hindutva" here, saying that it believes in "destroying everyone whose thinking does not match theirs".
Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt presents an inseiders view of the Congress plenary held at Burari.
For the Congress's PR managers, Rahul Gandhi is a 'work in progress' and Saturday is an important day to show off some initial results
In what is being seen as a great irony, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi's face has been removed from the latest posters, billboards and advertising campaign of the Congress party.
He has also convened the first meeting of the extended CWC on July 22 to chalk out the party's future strategy.
Voting began on Monday in the Congress presidential polls as senior leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Shashi Tharoor face-off for the post of All India Congress Committee (AICC) chief.
In an affidavit filed in the apex court, the Union law ministry rejected the petitioner's claim that the two election commissioners were hastily appointed on March 14 to "pre-empt" the orders of the top court the next day, when the matters challenging the 2023 law were listed for hearing on interim relief.
The youngest in the CWC is 31-year-old Neeraj Kundan, who is an ex-officio member of the body as the president of the National Students Union of India, the students' wing of the party.
While its performance in Bihar, has boosted fund collections, corporate contributors are still waiting to see its performances in Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal before committing funds to the Congress.
While 39 members of the all-important panel are general members, it has 32 permanent invitees, including some in-charges of state and 13 special invitees.
The coming year will be one that will test sabka vishwas to the utmost, predicts Aditi Phadnis.
The Congress party will have an elected president by June 2021, with the party's working committee on Friday approving holding the internal election after the assembly polls.
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