Congress president Sonia Gandhi has set up a high-powered committee of over a dozen senior leaders, including Union Ministers, to hardsell the party while taking on Chief Minister Narendra Modi in the year-end assembly elections in Gujarat.
The first meeting of the panel was held on Saturday and was presided by Sonia’s political secretary Ahmed Patel.
For concentrated attention, a cluster of leaders has been earmarked for each of the five divisions of the state: Mukul Wasnik and Santosh Bagrodia (north Gujarat), Digvijay Singh, Kanti Lal Bhuria and Mabel Rabello (centralGujarat), Sriprakash Jaiswal and Renuka Chaudhary and Maharashtra MLA Syed Ahmed (Saurashtra), Govindrao Adik and Subodh Kant Sahay (Kutch) and Prithviraj Chavan, Manikrao Gavit, S Naik and Kripa Shankar Singh (south Gujarat). The party is weakest in the Saurashtra region.