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All India Congress Committee (AICC)’s highest decision-making body, Congress Working Committee (CWC), will meet in Ahmedabad on March 12 in what is being seen as an attempt to challenge Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah on their home turf of Gujarat, ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
Earlier, the CWC meeting was scheduled for February 28, but it was postponed on February 26 after the Indian Air Force carried out an operation against Jaish-e-Mohammed training camps at Balakot in Pakistan. On February 14, Congress President Rahul Gandhi had launched his party’s election campaign from Valsad district in South Gujarat, which was overshadowed by the Pulwama attack the same day.
Agenda of the meet
The CWC meeting is now being held on March 12 to commemorate the day when Mahatma Gandhi had concluded his Dandi March in 1930.
The CWC is expected to rework its policy on national security in view of the current political situation, shift the narrative from Pulwama attack and prepare itself to face the LS elections.
The party has also roped in Lieutenant-General DS Hooda (retired), the architect of Indian Army’s surgical strike to avenge the Uri terror attack in 2016, to lead a task force. The team, which will also have retired police and Army officers, will submit a report on ‘challenges to national security’ later this month.
According to party sources, all 51 members of the CWC will attend the Ahmedabad meeting on March 12.
The CWC meeting will be followed by a public meeting on the outskirts of the city.
The CWC meetings are usually held in New Delhi. But, in October 2018, it was held at the Sevagram Ashram at Wardha in Maharashtra to mark the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.
Improving performance
By holding the CWC meeting here, the Congress hopes to galvanise its cadres and improve its performance. In 2017 Assembly polls, the party won 77 seats in the 182-member House, reducing the BJP’s tally to just 99 for the first time since 1995.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP had won all the 26 seats.
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