Gujarat to host AICC session after 64 years

Ahmedabad, Feb 24 (PTI) When the Congress holds its AICC session in Ahmedabad in April, it will only be the third time in the party's 139-year-old history that Gujarat will host this mega conclave with the last one held 64 years ago in 1961 in Bhavnagar.

Gujarat Congress president Shaktisinh Gohil on Monday thanked the party's high command on behalf of the people of Gujarat for deciding to organise the key session in the state.

The All India Congress Committee (AICC) session on April 8 and 9 will deliberate on the challenges posed by the BJP's "anti-people" policies and its alleged attack on the Constitution, as well as on charting the outfit's future road map, the opposition party said in New Delhi on Sunday.

"The party has given a chance to Gujarat to organise the AICC session on April 8-9 in Ahmedabad city, the biggest centre of independence struggle where an ashram of Mahatma Gandhi (Sabarmati Ashram) is located. I thank the working committee and high command for deciding to organise the session here," Gohil said while addressing the media.

He said the party wanted to organise the session at Mahatma Mandir in Gandhinagar "but have been told unofficially that the venue will not be provided for the purpose".

Gujarat, which houses birthplaces of independence heroes Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, will host an AICC session for the third time in the Congress history with the last one organised at Bhavnagar in 1961 when Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy was the party's president, the Rajya Sabha MP said.

The AICC's first session in Gujarat was organised at Haripura near Bardoli in 1938, when Sardar Patel had taken the responsibility for the event, he said.

It was organised to mark the 10th anniversary of Bardoli satyagraha, a non-violent farmer protest led by Patel which was launched to oppose the British government's excessive taxation.

"At the Haripura session, Subhash Chandra Bose was elected as the AICC president. It was at that very session that the declaration of 'purna swaraj' (full self-rule) was reaffirmed and a blueprint was issued by Bose on how to run the government after independence," Gohil said.

At the Haripura session, Bose had first proposed the idea of establishing a planning commission and launching five-year plans, the GPCC president maintained.

"The blueprint issued by Bose in the 1938 session was implemented by the country's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru 12 years later," he said.

The second AICC session in Gujarat was organised in 1961 in Bhavnagar, when Neelam Sanjiva Reddy was the party's national president, Gohil said.

The session in Ahmedabad will commence on April 8 with an extended Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting, followed by the AICC Delegates' meeting on April 9, the party said.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge will preside over both the meetings, which will be attended by Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, all chief ministers of the Congress-ruled states, national office bearers, senior party leaders, and other AICC delegates, it added.

During the press conference, GPCC president Gohil also accused the BJP government of providing "wrong" figures regarding Gujarat's budget size and public debt during the budget presented in the assembly last week.

"The government claimed the state budget size was Rs 3.77 lakh crore (Rs 3,70,250 crore as per govt). It is for the first time that the BJP government presented wrong figures in the Vidhan Sabha," he alleged.

Gohil said in reply to a question asked by him in Parliament, the BJP government cited an RBI report and said the Gujarat's has a debt of Rs 4,67,476.4 crore, which was much more than the state's annual budget.

"This is the Gujarat model, where the debt surpasses the annual budget even when no benefit is passed on to farmers, women and youth in the form of electricity and government jobs, etc. This is because a few industrialists are looting the state treasury," the Congress leader claimed. PTI KA PD RSY

Source: PTI