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 meeting started under the presidency of Mallikarjun Kharge but former presidents Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi were yet to arrive and are unlikely to attend the steering committee meeting.
The AICC meet will be the vindication of the policy of the 'coming together of secular forces' pursued by Sonia since she took over the reins of the organisation way back in 1998.
If you were present at the 83rd Congress plenary in New Delhi on Sunday, you would have thought that there is nothing wrong with the UPA-2 government, the government is not responsible for any corruption scandal, B S Yeddyurappa is the only corrupt politician in the country, and the BJP and the RSS are responsible for all that ails the country.
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.
The two-day Congress plenary session in New Delhi, which met following weeks of turmoil in the Congress had less of introspection on corruption and crises, and more of the general Congress agenda: Promote Rahul Gandhi, project him as a mature leader who has taken the next step towards leading the nation and bash the Bharatiya Janata Party.
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.
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Enjoying the luxury of power at the Centre, Congress would have to trudge the middle path on key issues like alliances, lest it sends wrong singals to its allies in the coalition.
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.
The plenary session in Chhattisgarh's Nava Raipur will start from February 24 and is expected to be attended by around 15,000 delegates.
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.
Over 20,000 congressmen came together to celebrate the Indian National Congress completing 125 years of existence. But the mood at the 83rd plenary, held with all the pomp and show in a grand tent, did not reflect the grandness of the occasion. The mood was somber to start with, the party delegates sat quietly neither cheering nor shouting slogans as they normally do, asking Rahul Gandhi to speak.
The party said it was 'an inexcusable slip-up', for which responsibility was being fixed and action would be taken.
China's second-ranked general, He Weidong, is under investigation for corruption, along with nine other senior military officers punished for discipline violations and work-related crimes. This crackdown comes ahead of a key Communist Party conclave.
Vice Admiral Li Hanjun, chief of staff of the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), and Liu Shipeng, deputy chief engineer of China National Nuclear Corporation, have been expelled from the National People's Congress (NPC), the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.
'They (the Modi government) are trying to silence people who speak against this government, who speak with force and speak with conviction and want to speak the truth.'
This, the Congress said in its political resolution, was necessary as there were misgivings on the 'misuse' of EVMs to 'manipulate the outcome contrary to popular verdict.' The resolution called for reverting to the old practice of paper ballot as adopted by other major democracies to help restore the credibility of the electoral process.
And while delegates from all over China attended the National People's Congress, all eyes were on one man, the anointed-by-personal-diktat ruler for life, Xi Jinping.
The cable in which Rahul Gandhi tells the US ambassador Timothy Roemer that radical Hindu groups pose a bigger threat than the LeT could haunt the young leader, says Sheela Bhatt.
Ramesh told PTI that an east-to-west yatra, probably from Pasighat in Arunachal Pradesh to Porbandar in Gujarat, was being considered but its format could be a bit different from the Bharat Jodo Yatra.
'He was not highly educated. He was Class 10 passed but his intelligence was high. He could impress any group of people.'
A cursory look at the speech revealed that the telling lines where he says that he has nothing to hide and makes the offer of appearing before the PAC, "I sincerely believe that like Caesar's wife, the prime minister should be above suspicion and it is for this reason that I am prepared to appear before the PAC even though there i no precedent of this."
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday wrote to the Public Accounts Committee expressing his willingness to appear before the panel which is looking into the 2G spectrum allocation scam. Following up his announcement at the Congress plenary session, Dr Singh made the offer in his letter to PAC Chairman Murli Manohar Joshi. Addressing the concluding day of the Congress plenary, Dr Singh had said he would be 'happy to appear' before the PAC though there was no precedent.
It said the Congress will infuse new blood in leadership roles without creating new fault lines and cementing its ideological moorings.
Reacting to news reports that the Congress party in its plenary session is likely to demand for a Central Bureau of Investigation probe against the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh links to terror attacks organised by the radical Hindu organisations, BJP Vice President Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said that this was just a desperate attempt by the United Progressive Alliance government and the Congress party to divert the attention from corruption issue.
The Congress president will have to set up a new CWC in place of the steering committee which was formed after the working committee was dissolved by him.
Yeddyurappa was the most chanted name at the ongoing Congress plenary session at New Delhi. Almost every speaker at the plenary termed the Karnataka CM as the most corrupt chief minister in India.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday said he has never owned a house and noted that this experience had helped him 'change' his Bharat Jodo Yatra and connect with the people.
'If they are not, then the Modi government should order a JPC immediately.'
The BJP leader said Congress leaders "flouted law" by starting protests on the Delhi airport tarmac and endangered the lives of fellow passengers. People were inconvenienced by the Congress' protests, he said.
Asked whether he regretted the remarks over which he was arrested, Khera alluded to a Hindi film song -- "Hum bolega to bologe ki bolta hai", and added that, "Is liye hum kuch nahi bolega (that is why I will not say anything)." "Will speak when the time comes. A legal process is on and it is not proper to comment on it," he told a press conference on the sidelines of the Congress plenary session.
The winter session will begin on December 7 and will last until December 29.
This will be the third plenary of the decade-old party, and the first since it came to power in Andhra Pradesh three years ago.
Minutes after Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh's speech at the 83rd Congress plenary on Monday, where he offered to appear before the Public Accounts Committee in the wake of scams that have rocked the nation, he came under the fire of the Opposition.
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