The agenda of the September 24 meet is Bihar Assembly electiions.
Credit: PTI File Photo
Patna: The Congress party will hold its first-ever Working Committee meeting in Patna on September 24.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, ex-presidents Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, besides Priyanka Gandhi and former Speaker Meira Kumar are likely to attend the meet at the party headquarters - Sadaquat Ashram - here in the State Capital.
The apex body meeting of the grand old party was last held here in 1940.
The agenda of the September 24 meet is Bihar Assembly elections where the Congress Working Committee (CWC) may finalise the names of 38 party candidates, although the Congress is eyeing to get 76 seats in the seat-sharing pact with the RJD.
During the last 2020 Assembly poll, the Congress contested on 70 seats, but lost on 51, winning merely 19 seats. This poor performance by Congress was cited as one reason how and why Tejashwi Yadav missed the CM’s chair narrowly as the Mahagatbandhan, the previous avtaar of the Grand Alliance, romped home in 110 seats in the 243-member House.
However, the scenario in the Congress party in 2025 is different from the 2020 polls. The recent Voters’ Adhikar Yatra undertaken by Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, has infused a new lease of life into the moribund organisation which has been gasping for breath ever since it was ousted from power in March 1990.
Buoyant over favourable response over Rahul’s yatra, the Congress wants RJD to spare a respectable number of seats for the grand old party and not only those seats which are not winnable.
“All the allies within the Mahagatbandhan will have to make compromises. It’s not as if the Congress should get only those seats which are not winnable,” said the in-charge of Congress Affairs in Bihar, Krishna Allavaru, who will also attend the CWC meet on Wednesday.
It is against this backdrop that the CWC will shortlist the names of 38 candidates and give final shape to the remaining 38 nominees, hoping against hope that the RJD would spare at least 76 seats for the Congress.
“The Left is also demanding some more seats compared to 2020. So is the VIP (Vikas-sheel Insaan Party) led by Mukesh Sahni. Under such circumstances, chances are there could be swapping of few seats amongst the allies,” said a senior Congress leader, dwelling at length on how all the alliance partners try to extract their pound of flesh during poll-eve.