Sonia begins Cong cleansing with Kesri’s room

NEW DELHI, March 17: Brimming with confidence, Sonia Gandhi today advanced the date of the special All India Congress Committee session to r...

NEW DELHI, March 17: Brimming with confidence, Sonia Gandhi today advanced the date of the special All India Congress Committee session to ratify her election as party chief by five days (to March 30) and simultaneously embarked on a big public relations drive to end her "inaccesible" image.

The unravelling of Sonia is expected to be the the most awaited happening in the Congress in recent times and 10, Janpath is going for it in a big way. Currently, the gaddi former party president Sitaram Kesri used to sit on in his office has made its exit from the AICC headquarters. The room is being "modernised" to suit Sonia’s tastes and apparently she has told some MPs that she would be attending office at 24, Akbar Road in a couple of days.

She has also chosen to sit at the Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson’s office in Parliament House whenever the session is on. For Congressmen, this is the first chance to talk to Sonia in any meaningful way. She has so far built an aura around her on the sheer strengthof rigid privacy till she campaigned for the Congress in the recent election.

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Also, she is said to be keen to dispel the impression that the country’s oldest party will be run from 10, Janpath by spending a fair amount of time next door in the party headquarters. And since hardly anyone has had more than a couple of minutes of interaction with her, middle-level leaders are waiting to latch on to every word she says.

The PR drive is so serious that attempts are being made to woo longtime rival P V Narasimha Rao. After sanctioning every step in Rao’s humiliating end to his career, Sonia spoke to him on telephone yesterday. "I am like your daughter. I need your blessings," Sonia is believed to have told Rao while inviting him to the CPP meeting. Rao agreed.

Following this up, Sonia sent her loyalist Arjun Singh to call on Rao today – the first meeting they have had in some years. Singh is a bitter rival of Rao and has blamed him for many things which went wrong for the party. But now 10, Janpath isreported to be keen not to have two rival flanks headed by Rao and Kesri. Therefore, the attempts to placate Rao.

The decision to advance the AICC session is an indication of Sonia’s desire to quickly change the team of AICC office-bearers and the Working Committee composition. Since Sonia has declared that the changes will be done only after the session, she now gets five days early to sack and appoint people.

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Normally, AICC sessions are enveloped by several controversial issues and tend to be postponed but this time the pro-Sonia group is not taking any chances. The decision to advance the meeting, slated to be held at the Talkatora Stadium here, was taken this afternoon at 10, Janpath and messages are to be sent to the delegates from tomorrow.

Officially, the reason being put out is that some festivals might hamper the chances of AICC delegates attending on the earlier date but that should have been considered even before the earlier date. The real reason seems to be to have Sonia’s handpicked teamin place by the beginning of the next month.

Ire over Madam’s nomination choice

There is resentment in the Congress over the nomination of two partymen for Rajya Sabha seats by Sonia Gandhi. The feeling is that the nomination of Santosh Mohan Deb from Assam and Oscar Fernandes from Karnataka is against the Congress Parliamentary Board (CPB) regulations which stipulate that candidates who have lost the Lok Sabha elections should not be nominated at least until a year after their defeat.