NEW DELHI: Congress chief Sonia Gandhi Tuesday held a meeting with top leadership ahead of the party’s three-day Chintan Shivir (brainstorming session) scheduled in Udaipur. The meeting at Gandhi’s residence was attended by senior leaders heading the six committees constituted to look into issues related to political, social justice and empowerment, economy, organisation, farmers & agriculture, and youth empowerment.
The discussion was primarily on the progress made by the committees with regard to the preparation for the Chintan Shivir from May 13-15 and other related issues. The party’s general secretary (Organisation) K C Venugopal is scheduled to visit Udiapur to oversee the arrangements for the session that will be attended by 400 delegates from across the country.
The brainstorming session, being held after a long hiatus, is also expected to address the issue of the party’s revival and the debacle in recent assembly elections. It seems organisational changes made for the Gujarat and Himachal Assembly elections later this year also came up for discussions, so did the presidential and vice-presidential elections. The party has recently revamped several state units and more changes are expected in the coming days.
In a move to placate disgruntled party leaders, the G23 group, in particular, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, Manish Tewari and Bhupinder Singh Hooda have been accommodated in six panels which have been assigned to start the groundwork for discussion and prepare the template for organisational restructuring.
Azad is part of the political panel, Hooda heads the panel on agriculture, Wasnik is heading the panel on organization and Sharma and Tewari are part of the panel on the economy.