Sonia Gandhi is holding a meeting with a select group of party colleagues.
Congress chief Sonia Gandhi is holding a meeting with a select group of party colleagues to discuss the proposal of election strategist Prashant Kishor for the revival of the party and its game plan for the 2024 general elections. There is also the crucial final call to take about Mr Kishor's joining the party -- a plan that has once fallen though due to dissent from within.
This time, Mr Kishor has pitched a proposal under which, sources said, the Congress can contest 370 seats and have coalitions with friendly parties in particular states.
Mr Kishor has suggested that the Congress fight alone in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha, and form alliances in Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Maharashtra, to which Rahul Gandhi has agreed, news agency ANI earlier reported, quoting unnamed sources.
The meeting at Mrs Gandhi's 10 Janpath Road residence in Delhi is being attended by her daughter and party General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, and senior leaders Mukul Wasnik, Randeep Singh Surjewala, KC Venugopal, and Ambika Soni.
The Congress, sources have said, has time till May 2 to revert on the proposal and the committee is expected to give a report on the matter within a week.
Later in the evening, Mr Kishor met Mrs Gandhi for a strategy session on the assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh due later this year and next year's state polls in Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, reported news agency Press Trust of India.
This was their second meeting in three days -- he gave a detailed presentation on Mission 2024 on Saturday before a select group of Congress leaders.
There has been considerable dissent towards Mr Kishor and his proposal in view of his close collaboration with leaders who have been direct competitors to the Congress in the states and have had a fractious relationship with the Grand Old party.
Among them are Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, her Andhra Pradesh counterpart Jagan Mohan Reddy and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao.
Mr Kishor's organisation IPAC had crafted extremely successful election campaigns for both Ms Banerjee and Mr Reddy.
While talks for Mr Kishor, or PK, joining the Congress fell through last year, his conversation with the Gandhis has continued, IPAC sources have said, notwithstanding his barbed public remarks about the party and its current leadership.
This time, Mr Kishor, sources said, had reached out to Rahul Gandhi with a grand plan for the revival of the party.
There, however, are disagreements about the methods.
While Mr Kishor favours a big bang approach, the Gandhis are not keen on ruffling too many feathers among the party's Old Guard, especially in view of its recent losses in Punjab and states like Goa and Manipur, where it considered itself to be on firm ground.