Home minister briefs Cong core group on probe

Aurangzeb Naqshbandi

New Delhi
The Congress core group met on Friday to discuss the political and security situation in the country, especially after the Delhi high court blast, which left 13 people dead and scores wounded.

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Home minister P Chidambaram briefed the core group about the status of investigations into the blast.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh chaired the meeting as Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who returned to on Thursday, did not attend it. She is recuperating after undergoing surgery abroad on August 4 for an undisclosed ailment.

However, law minister Salman Khurshid was the special invitee at the meeting also attended by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, defence minister AK Antony and the Sonia Gandhi's political secretary Ahmed Patel.

The committee also discussed the Gujarat Lokayukta issue, which saw a war of words between the Congress and the BJP and also led to stalling of Parliament for few days.

While the Congress has maintained that Governor Kamla Beniwal had appointed justice RA Mehta as the Lokayukta as per the rules laid in the state Lokayukta Act of 1986, the BJP alleged that the decision was "unconstitutional" as she had not consulted the Narendra Modi government on the issue.

Lokpal was another important issue on the core group agenda. The PM, sources said, wanted to know the status of the Lokpal Bill, which is currently being examined by the parliamentary standing committee on law and justice.

Meanwhile, party sources said the four-member committee, comprising Antony, Rahul Gandhi, Janardan Dwivedi and Patel, appointed by Sonia to look after the party affairs in her absence stands dissolved.

But there was no official word on it. The party will also take a stock of the political situation in the country at a meeting of its office bearers on Saturday.