NEW DELHI : The Congress on Thursday postponed its slated Central Election Committee (CEC) meeting for selection of the Lok Sabha elections to Friday and instead held a meeting of the central campaign committee jointly chaired by party president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi.
This further delays declaration of the party candidates that Rahul had wanted to start from mid-February and near completion by the first week of March. The CEC has to put its stamp on around 100 shortlisted candidates for the seats that were lost by the party in the last 2009 elections.
The campaign committee was divided on some of the party leaders again resorting to the personal attacks on the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi as Sonia Gandhi reportedly advised the party leaders to better engage the opposition parties on the issues instead of giving opportunity to them to hit back. Emerging from the meeting, Rahul Gandhi told reporters that he does not appreciate the ‘impotent’ remark made by Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid against Modi, though in the context of the 2002 Gujarat riots. “I do not appreciate this kind of comment…the kind of language,” he said disapproving Khurshid’s comment that brought an avalanche of protests from the BJP leaders since Wednesday.
