Sonia meets Pranab over crisis in party

Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Monday had a luncheon meeting with President Pranab Mukherjee during which a host of political issues, including ways to overcome the crisis faced by the party following its drubbing in Lok Sabha elections, were understood to have come up for discussion.

Gandhi’s deliberations with Mukherjee come in the wake of senior leader A K Antony’s report that did not blame either her or Rahul Gandhi for the party’s defeat but attributed it to Narendra Modi’s aggressive campaign. Although Mukherjee has kept himself away from the goings on in the Congress since he became President in 2012, he is understood to have given his counsel to Congress leaders as and when they sought it.

Gandhi had earlier met Mukherjee days after election results and later on July 8 when the Congress had taken a strong stand demanding that Mallikarjun Kharge be recognised as the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.

The Congress is currently in a flux. The leadership is still pondering about the reasons that have reduced the party to a mere 44 seats in the lower House. Mukherjee is known to keep communication lines open with a cross section of political leaders and even had meetings with BJP leaders L K Advani and Sushma Swaraj when they were in the Opposition.