Congress President Rahul Gandhi, General Secretary UP-East Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi arrived at Ahmedabad for Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting on Tuesday to discuss the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
The Gandhis arrived at the Sabarmati Ashram in a bus.
The Gandhi family is also joined by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh among others, who attended a prayer meet at the Ashram on the anniversary of Mhatama Gandhi’s ‘Dandi March’.
The meeting would be followed by a mega rally at Adalaj town in Gandhinagar where Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who has been given the charge of the party’s fortune in 41 constituencies of Uttar Pradesh, is likely to address her first public rally after entering politics.
CWC, the highest decision-making body of the Congress, is meeting in Gujarat, the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for the first time since 1961, after a gap of 58 years.
Apart from discussing the progress made in forging alliances in different states, the party’s highest decision-making body will also deliberate on demonetisation in the context of the details that have emerged from an RTI reply suggesting that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)’s board had objected to the note ban move.
“There are serious and very basic fundamental livelihood issues – there is farm distress, demonetisation; there is the issue of how badly GST has been implemented in order to destroy small and medium businesses. How MGNREGA programmes have been completely subverted,” Congress leader Jairam Ramesh told reporters in New Delhi when asked about the CWC agenda.
Patidar quota agitation leader Hardik Patel is also expected to join the Congress on Tuesday in the presence of party president Rahul Gandhi.
After the meeting at the Sardar Patel memorial building, senior Congress leaders, including Rahul Gandhi, UPC chairperson Sonia Gandhi and former prime minister Manmohan Singh, as well as current and former party chief ministers will attend the ‘Jan Sankalp’ rally’, state party unit chief Amit Chavda said.
The Congress is expecting a crowd of over three lakh people in the home turf of Modi and BJP president Shah ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, a party leader said.
This will be Rahul Gandhi’s second visit to Gujarat within a month in the run-up to the polls. He earlier addressed a rally in Valsad district February 14.
In 1961, the CWC meet was held at Bhavnagar in Gujarat.