Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi (file pic)
The Union Cabinet will meet this evening to take a final call on whether or not to take the ordinance route for key anti-corruption bills backed by Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi.
The Cabinet will also discuss a law giving special status to Seemandhra - the region of Andhra Pradesh that will form the residuary state once Telangana is carved out.
Though the government has decided to drop the ordinance route for the anti-graft bills, a series of meetings were held among the UPA's top ministers and Congress leaders on Saturday. Union ministers Sushil Kumar Shinde and Kapil Sibal also met President Pranab Mukherjee over the pending legislations.
Senior Congress leaders, including Ahmed Patel, A K Antony, Jairam Ramesh and Mr Shinde were summoned by party president Sonia Gandhi yesterday to chalk out the UPA government's plan, sources said.
According to top sources, the government is unsure whether the President would give his nod to the ordinances just days ahead of the announcement of the general elections, due by May.
The anti-graft bills are being seen as the Congress's last-ditch efforts to reclaim the anti-corruption plank, seen to be appropriated by Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party and Narendra Modi's BJP in the run-up to national elections.
The Congress Core Group, which met on Friday evening and decided to drop the ordinance plan, is likely to meet again on Sunday to discuss the pending bills.
The UPA government had failed to rush the bills through in the last session of Parliament. Two of them - the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Bill and the Rights of Citizens to Time-bound Delivery of Goods and Services and Redressal of Grievances Bill - are seen as Rahul Gandhi's pet bills.
A massive political backlash is expected if the bills are pushed through ordinances, as a government, which has entered its last lap, conventionally leaves the fate of such bills to be decided by the next government.