The Hindu : Front Page : Spotlight likely on Rahul

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Saturday, Nov 17, 2007
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Spotlight likely on Rahul

Gargi Parsai

Consultations: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee at the Congress Working Committee meeting in New Delhi on Friday, ahead of the AICC session.

NEW DELHI: Top Congress leaders, delegates and Chief Ministers of Congress-ruled States have arrived for the one-day meeting of the All-India Congress Committee (AICC), which will discuss among other things coalition politics.

The spotlight is likely to be on the newly inducted Congress Working Committee (CWC) member, Rahul Gandhi. The theme of the meeting will be “continuity with change” with focus on youth. The party will take stock of the economic, political and foreign policy situation. It will also suggest a way forward.

Party president Sonia Gandhi chaired a meeting of the extended Congress Working Committee — the highest decision-making body of the party — on Friday that fine-tuned the draft resolutions that will be placed at the AICC meeting for adoption. Mr. Gandhi also attended the meeting besides the other two new members, Prithviraj Chavan and Kishore Chandra Deo. The mainstay of the resolutions would be an omnibus resolution on the economic, political and foreign affairs. It will reflect the current political situation, coalition politics, elections, economic growth rate, inflation, agriculture situation and India’s foreign policy with focus on relations with the United States, China, Russia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Nandigram and the India-U.S. nuclear deal will also be reflected in the resolution.

The party will talk about its achievements in the social sector and the promises fulfilled under the National Common Minimum Programme of the United Progressive Alliance.

Ms. Gandhi will chair the meeting and deliver an address that will state the party’s position on various issues. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will also address the meeting. But the spotlight will remain on Mr. Rahul Gandhi, who is also the general secretary in charge of Youth Congress and the National Students’ Union of India. The extended CWC also approved the draft resolutions on amending the constitution of the party to streamline membership issues and draft resolutions on Mahatma Gandhi’s Satyagraha; 150 Years of War of Independence and 60 Years of India’s Independence.

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