|
 |
Congress President Mrs. Sonia Gandhi: The
lady behind the party's revival post Babri Masjid demolition |
|
New Delhi: The Congress is to
commemorate its 125th anniversary next year on a grand scale and on
Friday set up a 19-member organising committee headed by party chief
Sonia Gandhi to celebrate the event.
The Congress, founded by A.O. Hume in 1885, will complete 125 years
in December 2010, but the celebrations will begin a year earlier.
The year-long
celebrations, which begin Dec 28, 2009, will seek to highlight the
role of the Indian National Congress in the independence struggle
and its contribution to nation building.
All India Congress
Committee secretary Tom Vaddakan said that exhibitions, seminars and
film shows would be organised across all the party block units.
“It will rekindle
the pan-India aura of the party,” he said, adding that the detailed
programme would worked out by the committee.
Besides the
Congress president, other members of the organising committee
include union ministers Pranab Mukherjee, Ambika Soni, Mukul Wasnik,
Ghulam Nabi Azad, Murli Deora, Anand Sharma, Jairam Ramesh and party
general secretaries Rahul Gandhi, Mohsina Kidwai, Janardan Dwivedi,
B.K. Hariprasad, Digvijay Singh.
It also includes
AICC treasurer Motilal Vora, political secretary to the Congress
president Ahmed Patel, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, party
spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan and former minister Mani Shankar
Aiyar. Defence Minister A.K. Antony is the vice-chairman of the
committee.
The celebrations
come at a time when the graph of the Congress has improved following
its successes in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections and in last month’s
assembly polls in Arunachal Pradesh, Maharashtra and Haryana.
The party had
faced a string of assembly poll reverses before the 2009 Lok Sabha
elections. Its political journey over the past two decades has been
uneven with the party conceding political space in some crucial
states to regional and opposition parties.
The Congress has
been heading a coalition government at the centre since 2004 and has
a desire to regain its status as the pre-eminent political force of
the country.
|