New Delhi

Sonia tells Delhi leaders to pull up socks, prepare for polls

NEW DELHI: On a day of hectic political moves, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday convened a meeting of the party’s Coordination Committee for Delhi and directed the party leaders in the State to prepare for elections by constituting various committees and starting the campaign at different levels.

The meeting was attended by Congress president’s political secretary Ahmed Patel, party general secretaries Ashok Gehlot and Janardhan Dwivedi, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, Union Minister of State for Urban Development Ajay Maken, Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee president J. P. Agarwal, Delhi Ministers A. K. Walia and Raj Kumar Chauhan and Delhi MLA Tajdar Babar.

During the nearly half-hour meeting, the Congress president emphasised the need for the party to work together and speedily constitute various committees like the campaign committee, manifesto committee, media committee and publicity committee to prepare for the elections. Ms. Gandhi also directed the party leaders to start working in the constituencies. She said it was important that Assembly-wise conventions were organised.

Her directions come against the backdrop of the A. K. Antony Committee’s recommendation that all the party units in the election-bound States should constitute these committees at the earliest and start campaigning for the polls. Mr. Antony had stated that it would be in the best interest of the party that some of the work at hand was initiated well before the elections.

The Coordination Committee members mentioned during the meeting that observers had already been appointed and a convention is being organised at Parliament Annexe on July 2 where Mr. Patel, Mr. Gehlot and Mr. Dwivedi would interact with all the elected representatives of the Congress in Delhi. Besides the MPs, MLAs and Councillors, the meeting would also be attended by DPCC office-bearers and district presidents.

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