The scion of the Congress dynasty and vice-president Rahul Gandhi is scheduled to spend a good part of Thursday at the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee headquarters, interacting with the party leaders and government functionaries and discussing the strategies for the upcoming Delhi Assembly elections.
Sources in the party said several back-to-back meetings have been lined up during the day and Mr. Gandhi is scheduled to meet all the DPCC functionaries led by president J. P. Agarwal, block and district level leaders, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and her Cabinet colleagues, all the legislators and councillors as also heads of the various organisational units.
The meeting assumes significance as it comes at a time when the relations between Ms. Dikshit and Mr. Agarwal are at an all time low and air is rife with speculation about a change in guard at DPCC. In fact, both these senior leaders have openly spoken against each other at various party fora as also before the Central leaders.
Now with the Delhi Assembly elections just about six months away, Ms. Dikshit has been pressing for a change in guard. Last week following her meeting with Congress president Sonia Gandhi, just 40 minutes after former DPCC chief Subhash Chopra had gone to 10 Janpath, had given rise to murmurs of an imminent change.
But according to party sources, Ms. Dikshit was not happy with the choice. No wonder several other names , including that of Speaker Yoganand Shastri, former Ministers Mangat Ram Singhal and Narendra Nath, and some leaders from the SC community including Union Minister Krishna Tirath, are being discussed for the post.
“But, as they say in the Congress, never expect anything till it actually happens,” said a party leader adding that it is in this backdrop that while fireworks are expected between the two groups on Thursday, there is also a possibility that the leaders may first want to gauge the mood of the young Gandhi before openly airing their views.
