The 3-day “chintan shivir” of the grand old party begins from today at Udaipur in Rajasthan. While the former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and 40 other senior leaders have arrived by train to Udaipur, has received a warm welcome by the party leaders, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also arrived at Udaipur where several leaders welcomed her.
The Congress interim President Sonia Gandhi is expected to arrive at the hotel serving as the venue around 2 pm, where Rajasthan Congress chief Govind Singh Dotasara will be welcoming her. Sonia Gandhi, who has been serving as the party’s interim president, is scheduled to address a gathering in the city at around 3 pm, on various issues like economy, unemployment, inflation, farming-sector etc.
Along with the Gandhis, many big leaders including Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel, Former CMs of Madhya Pradesh – Kamal Nath and Digvijaya Singh, former union minister Manishankar Aiyar, KC Venugopal, Mukul Vasnik, Dr. Ajay Kumar, Avinash Pandey, Ajay Maken, Mallikarjun Kharge and all other bigshots of the Congress party have started arriving Rajasthan for party’s 3-day “chintan shivir” organised to revive the grand old party at the national level, ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections.
The Congress party has given the responsibility of all the arrangements to Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot. Amidst the politically heated atmosphere in Rajasthan, senior leader Sachin Pilot has also welcomed the move to organise the “chintan shivir”, saying “50% Chintan Shivir delegates are below 40, it shows Sonia Gandhi’s mind on youth leadership. I believe that the Congress party will witness big changes after the chintan shivir, and the UPA will do a comeback in 2024 like the 2004 Lok Sabha elections.”
Meanwhile, senior leader Ajay Maken said there is complete unanimity on the one family, one ticket rule, as he promised big organisational changes in the party after the conclave.
He said, “There’s almost complete unanimity among panel members on the proposal that to ensure that party leaders don’t give tickets to their kin or relatives without any work in the party, at least 5 yrs of prior work in the party will be required.”
“Any person who is holding the post continuously has to step down and a cooling period of three years in case that person comes back to the same post,” he further added.
Senior Congress leaders and the Gandhis have arrived in Rajasthan’s Udaipur today, for the three-day brainstorming session, which is being called the ‘Nav Sankalp Chintan Shivir’ to discuss a strategy for the 2024 general polls, ways to combat the politics of polarisation and getting battle-ready for upcoming electoral challenges.
