A day after the Congress brainstormed over its electoral reverses, senior leader M Veerappa Moily on Monday said Sonia Gandhi should take "full control" of the party with a free hand to change non-performing leaders, and asserted that a "mere culture of tweets and social media propaganda" would not take the organisation forward.
Under SPG protection, Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi were using Range Rovers.
Attacking the Modi government, Sonia said it has sought to erode our institutions.
Rahul Gandhi may also contest from Amethi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra from Rae Bareli, a seat which was previously held by Sonia Gandhi.
'We have to be fully prepared and ready ourselves for the coming challenge,' she said.
According to sources, Sonia Gandhi took a jibe on party leaders, "You all are sitting together right but otherwise you don't even talk to each other."
Sources in the Congress and NCP said the draft CMP and allocation of portfolios between the three parties will be discussed in the meeting.
"Sonia Gandhi is currently travelling on a short international visit for personal reasons," the Congress party's chief spokesman Randeep Surjewala said.
Terming Congress president Sonia Gandhi as "gangotri" (fountainhead) of corruption in the country, Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy said on Wednesday that the Opposition should not play her game.
The meeting comes amid continued attack by former Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu on the chief minister.
Gandhi was put in a police bus but officials did not disclose where he was being taken.
Accusing the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party of weakening the country's democratic institutions, Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Sunday challenged the graft charges leveled against the government, and said that those who lecture on corruption, are themselves neck-deep in corruption.
Indicating his keenness to contest the Lok Sabha elections from Amethi, Robert Vadra, businessman and husband of Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has said that the people of Amethi expect him to represent their constituency if he thinks of becoming a member of Parliament.
A United States court has ordered Congress President Sonia Gandhi to provide a copy of her passport as documentary evidence by April 7 to determine if she was in America in September last year when a Sikh rights group claims it had served summons on her in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots case.
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.
Union minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi asked officials in her Lok Sabha constituency of Pilibhit to follow the example of Sonia in order to check corruption in the education department.
Party President Sonia Gandhi left for the United States on Wednesday and is reported to have undergone a major surgery in a New York hospital on Thursday morning local time, which is being described as 'successful.'
The party also named Dinesh Pratap Singh as its candidate from Rae Bareli, a Gandhi family bastion which was won by former Congress president Sonia Gandhi five consecutive times.
Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, who had gone abroad for a "routine checkup" on February 27 following a surgery six months back, returned to New Delhi on Monday.
The stage is set for a direct contest between NDA nominee C P Radhakrishnan and joint opposition candidate B Sudershan Reddy for the September 9 vice-presidential election. Nominations have been scrutinized and accepted.
You suffered the pain of walking for miles. But the Modi-Yogi governments acted irresponsibly and turned their faces away and closed their eyes, despite the pain of the people: Sonia
Gehlot expressed his sadness over the turn of affairs in the state.
In a letter to the President, he said that he mistakenly used an incorrect word for her and it was a slip of tongue.
The Congress on Sunday night sought to downplay the remarks of its president Sonia Gandhi at a public meeting in Haryana that the opponents of India-United States nuclear deal were enemies of development. The party said the comments were not directed at the Left parties.
The party, the sources said, has also approved 50 per cent representation to SCs, STs, OBCs and minorities at all levels of the organisation, as part of its social engineering efforts to win the confidence of the weaker and oppressed sections of society.
Arun told rediff.com that this was an "unwarranted and senseless attack against Sonia Gandhi," and challenged those responsible for the ad, "Who among us is so straightforward as to be able to speak on or about Sonia?"
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday challenged Congress president Sonia Gandhi to provide details of the 'additional' financial assistance provided by the Centre to the state.Kumar was reacting to remarks made by Gandhi earlier, when she had claimed that Bihar had received the maximum amount of financial assistance from the Centre for development and welfare programmes during the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance's tenure.
A meeting of the newly elected Congress Members of Legislative Assembly in Maharashtra on Saturday authorised party president Sonia Gandhi to nominate their new leader, who will be the next chief minister. A one-line resolution, authorising Sonia Gandhi to name the new leader, was passed at the first meeting of the Congress Legislature Party, convened in Mumbai to elect the leader, two days after the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party combine stormed back to power.
'What matters is policies, not personalities like Priyanka, Rahul or Modi.'
The two leaders have returned to the country amid a growing clamour for structural changes within the party after its debacle in the crucial Uttar Pradesh polls.
Yoga guru Baba Ramdev, who is a known supporter of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has said that he sees a lot of 'Indianness' in Congress president Sonia Gandhi's daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.
'The Congress can exist without (someone from) the Nehru-Gandhi family being its president.'
"Soon it will be done," Sonia said when asked by reporters repeatedly as to when Rahul Gandhi, who is at present the vice president of the party, will be elevated.
The Congress president had in September last year made a similar trip abroad for a routine medical check-up after undergoing surgery for an undisclosed ailment in August 2011.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi was on Sunday greeted by a host of dignitaries, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, on her 62nd birthday.
Sources said Modi also called up various leaders, including Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik, Dravida Munnetra Kazagham's M K Stalin and Shiromani Akali Dal leader Parkash Singh Badal.
May 21 is the 13th death anniversary of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.
'I know, you did it all for love,' Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said on Wednesday in an Instagram tribute showing her mother Sonia Gandhi, who on Wednesday handed the party's reins to a new Congress president, holding a photograph of the late Rajiv Gandhi.
"Politics of revenge has recoiled back and Sonia Gandhi has become a victim of her own conspiracy. This grand standing will not help," party General Secretary Arun Jaitley told reporters.
A United States federal court in New York has given Congress president Sonia Gandhi time till January 2 to respond to charges of "shielding, protecting and rewarding" the perpetrators of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
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