New Delhi, December 11
The Congress is planning to revive the practice of calling a meeting of its chief ministers, ostensibly to review the implementation of its election manifesto promises. The next meeting is being planned for around mid-January next year, it is learnt.
Three venues — Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka — are under consideration for this
meeting, which is being held after a gap of nearly two years. The last such conclave was held in Srinagar.
Congress sources said though the venue is yet to be finalised, Andhra Pradesh is emerging as a favourite. This is especially so since the Congress did exceedingly well in the state in the last Lok Sabha polls. These meetings have been organised at Guwahati, Mount Abu, Delhi and Srinagar in the recent past.
The proposed conclave will be special since the Congress is back in power at the Centre after eight years in wilderness. The meeting may well double as a victory celebration. Coming on the eve of the Assembly elections in Haryana, Bihar and Jharkhand, it will also project the Congress as a pan-Indian party with a national presence.
The practice of calling all the Congress chief ministers for a special conference every six months was started by party president Sonia Gandhi. The purpose of these meetings was to evaluate how the various Congress governments were implementing their poll promises and to learn from each other’s success stories. Since the Congress was in opposition then, a line-up of its chief ministers also helped showcase the party’s strength in the states.
The schedule of these meetings got derailed because of the Assembly polls last year, which were followed by the Lok Sabha elections.
