Rahul Gandhi part of key committee that will draw Cong policy-09/12/2010

09/12/2010

Rahul Gandhi part of key committee that will draw Cong policy

New Delhi, Dec 9 (PTI) Rahul Gandhi, who has often talked of going it alone in key states like Uttar Pradesh, is a prominent member of the draft committee of the AICC, which will finalise the political line of the Congress at the plenary being held here from December 18.

The 40-year-old Congress general secretary is among the 22 members of the high-level committee headed by senior leader Pranab Mukherjee, which has been tasked to prepare the draft political, economic and foreign policy resolutions.

This is the second plenary after the Congress-led UPA came to power in 2004 and the first after the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, in which the coalition retained power with Congress crossing the 200 mark in the 543-member Lok Sabha after a gap of over 15 years.

Congress leaders are tightlipped on the what would be the party line on coalition politics at the plenary. At the Hyderabad plenary in 2006, Gandhi had made it clear that the Congress cannot abdicate its political space while carrying on the coalition experiment.

Prominent among those in the draft committee are senior leaders like Arjun Singh, A K Antony, Digvijay Singh, P Chidambaram and Jairam Ramesh.

However, the sub-committee which will finalise the draft resolution on political situations is headed by A K Antony.

The sub-committee on economic resolution is headed by Pranab Mukherjee and the another one on foreign affairs is headed by Commerce Minister Anand Sharma with External Affairs Minister S M Krishna being a prominent member.

After the sub-committees finalise the draft resolutions, the draft committee will pass them.

The resolutions will finally be cleared in a meeting of the Subjects Committee headed by Congress President Sonia Gandhi on the first day of the plenary.

"The resolutions will be brought for discussion and adoption before the two-day open session of the plenary only after the Subject Committee clears it," a senior party leader said.

The Subject Committee will have members of the CWC, which has now been converted into a steering committee, its permanent invitees and special invitees, all PCC chiefs and CLP leaders from states, chief of the front organisations and CPP office bearers.

Sources said that the Plenary will also adopt a separate resolution on the completion of 125 years of the party, apart from the three main resolutions.

A senior leader said that there could be amendments in the resolutions after discussions in the open session.