Congress CWC meet: The first meeting of the reconstituted Congress Working Committee (CWC) will be held in Hyderabad on Saturday to build a strategy for the upcoming assembly polls in five states and the Lok Sabha elections which are scheduled next year. This meeting is also the first following the formation of the INDIA alliance, a grouping of 28 Opposition parties to take on the BJP-led NDA in the Lok Sabha polls, and the parties are set to begin seat-sharing talks soon.
Holding the crucial meeting in the Telangana capital, the Congress is also looking to send out a message that it will go all-out to dislodge the BRS government in the poll-bound state.
Mallikarjun Kharge on Saturday said that this is the first CWC meeting since he became the president, and discussion on the INDIA alliance and strategy for the upcoming elections is on the agenda.
Speaking about the itinerary of the CWC meeting, which will be presided over by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress general secretaries K C Venugopal and Jairam Ramesh on Friday said this is for the first time in many years that the party’s top decision-making body will hold deliberations for three days outside Delhi. It is rare for the Congress to hold a CWC meeting outside Delhi.
The meeting will start at 2:30 PM where former Congress presidents Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi will also be present.
“We have invited 90 people, but six of them have informed us about their inability to attend due to personal difficulties. All other 84 people will attend, including our four chief ministers,” Venugopal said.
On Sunday, there will be a meeting of the extended CWC to which all state party chiefs and CLP leaders, besides Parliamentary Party office-bearers, Central Election Committee members have been invited to strategize for the upcoming elections. “We invited 159 people, out of them 147 people are attending the meeting on Sunday,” Venugopal said.
The party is also scheduled to hold a “mega rally” near Hyderabad where it will announce six guarantees for the upcoming Telangana polls. It is also Telangana National Integration Day on Sunday. Later, Kharge will “flag off a cavalcade for all CWC members, invitees, PCC chiefs and CLP leaders to visit each of the 119 Assembly constituencies of Telangana”.
Following the rally, the party MPs would return to Delhi to attend the Special Session of Parliament, from September 18-22.
On August 20, Congress chief Kharge had reconstituted the CWC, retaining the old guard and giving space to the young in the 84-member body.
The CWC has 39 regular members, 32 permanent invitees and 13 special invitees. These include 15 women and several new faces such as Shashi Tharoor, Sachin Pilot and Gaurav Gogoi who are among the regular members.