By IANS,
Lucknow: All newly elected Congress MPs are set to converge here Saturday for an open house session to discuss strategies and thrash out the party’s course of action to fight back the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in Uttar Pradesh.
Declared as an occasion to felicitate the 21 newly elected MPs, the meet will be presided over by All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary Digvijay Singh, who had played a key role in putting the party back on track in Uttar Pradesh, where it had faded into oblivion after ruling for four long decades.
Former prime minister V.P. Singh’s son Ajeya Singh will also announce the merger of his father’s brainchild – Jan Morcha – with the Congress party on this occasion.
Another key event would be the induction of BSP leader Neeraj Bora, who fell out with Chief Minister Mayawati. He lost the last state assembly election as a BSP nominee from one of the constituencies.
However, Congress president Soia Gandhi and Congress general secretary and her son Rahul Gandhi, who too have been elected to the Lok Sabha from Uttar Pradesh, are not likely to attend the meeting, party sources indicated.
Said UPCC spokesman Subodh Srivastava: “The day’s functions will commence at 10.20 a.m. with the felicitation of the new MPs at a special function at Ravindralaya.”
“While this function has been thrown open to the media, a closed door session follows in the afternoon when strategies would be discussed and debated,” he added.
“Saturday’s meet marks the beginning of our battle against the undemocratic, anti-people and anti-development policies of the BSP government, which needs to be voted out in the next assembly elections in 2012,” said Srivastava.