Kesri Planning Aicc Recast

Kesri has given indications to this effect in the last meeting of the AICC office-bearers.

So far only general secretary Madhavsinh Solanki has offered to relinquish the office, to give a free hand to the party chief to recast the team. Kesri has asked Solanki to continue for the time being until he took an overall view of organisational affairs. The new president has assured some of the dissident leaders that he would make it a point to take the views of all sections among the senior leaders before arriving at major decisions.

A meeting of the CWC is also proposed to be called early next month. He has asked K Karunakaran to covey to him whatever views he had on various issues.

Meanwhile, Congressmen are talking of various future scenarios following the political downfall of Narasimha Rao.

Those who are still hanging on to Sonia Gandhi have once again become active. Last week 12 pro-Sonia leaders had issued a statement appealing to her to take over the party leadership.

Among them were such confirmed pro-Sonia leaders like Ratnakar Pandey and Manorama Pande and other like Harikesh Bahadur and Har Pal Singh. The same group has called a wider meeting on Tuesday next.

Kesri had to put up with some embarrassing moments yesterday with the circulation of a six-page document detailing what it calls allegations of financial irregularities by him. Written by a former senior Bihar official, the document has been made available to the Press. Its copies are claimed to have been forwarded to Narasimha Rao, Deve Gowda and the CBI.

Such pinpricks apart, there is not much vissible opposition to the leadership of Sitaram Kesri among the visiting leaders and Congress MPs present in Delhi. Even the anti-Rao dissidents seem to be happy with the choice.

There has also been some rumours about what is described as the Karunakaran plan to join the Deve Gowda government. It is being reported that the dissident leader had met Deve Gowda in this regard and proposed the inclusion of a few Congressmen in the union ministry.

However, when contacted, Karunakaran yesterday firmly denied any such proposal from his side. I have nothing to do with it manasa, vacha, karmana (not thought of, spoken or done), he said. He would oppose any proposal for joining the UP government, Karunakaran said.