CWC meet to discuss attack on Rahul, Nitish U-turn today
AGENDA Panel also likely to pass a resolution to commemorate the Quit India Movement
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar’s move to dump the grand alliance, him renewing ties with the BJP and the attack on Rahul Gandhi in Gujarat will dominate the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting on Tuesday.
The meeting takes place on the day of the results of the Rajya Sabha elections in Gujarat. Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel is contesting from one of the three seats.
While the BJP is certain to win the two berths in the upper house, Patel’s contest for the third seat has resulted in a slugfest between the two parties.
Though not on the agenda circulated among its members, the CWC meeting will discuss yet another of threadbare Kumar’s political somersaults in reviving his ties with the BJP. Kumar had taken the moral high ground in June 2013 while breaking his 17-year ties with the BJP when Narendra Modi was named as its prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
In August 2014, he joined hands with bitter rival of two decades and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad for assembly bypolls in Bihar after their respective parties were routed in that year’s Lok Sabha elections.
The Congress too became a part of the so-called secular formation that went on to win the 2015 Bihar assembly elections.
The attack on Rahul Gandhi in Gujarat will also figure in the discussions, especially in view of Gandhi’s proposed visits to the home state of the Prime Minister and BJP chief Amit Shah in the run-up to the assembly elections scheduled to be held in November-December this year.
As the meeting takes place on the 75th anniversary of the historic 'Quit India' movement, the CWC is likely to pass a resolution to commemorate the event in a bid to corner the BJP on nationalism. Congress leaders have repeatedly argued that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which is the ideological mentor of the BJP, was not even a part of the freedom struggle but its leadership continues to give lessons on nationalism. The meeting will also ratify recent decisions of setting up new departments.