NEW DELHI, Jan 4: Sonia Gandhi is likely to formally begin her political career with a visit to the memorial site in Sriperumbudur where Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in 1991. Following the seeking of ``blessings'' from her late husband, tentatively on January 14, she will begin her tour in Bangalore the next day.Interestingly though, party president Sitaram Kesri will not be accompanying her on the campaign according to the tentative decision taken yesterday. Kesri is slated to hold his own rallies elsewhere in country while Sonia makes her tour.
Congress Working Committee (CWC) member Ghulam Nabi Azad and All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretaries Tariq Anwar and Oscar Fernandes are likely to accompany Sonia in the Bangalore rally, which will kick off her much-awaited campaign. The programme thus indicates that the Congress is keen to consolidate its southern bastions first. According to the tentative schedule, she will move on to other southern States from Bangalore.
A rigorous schedule
is in the offing including almost daily rallies to be addressed by her. From Bangalore, she is expected to move to Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. She is expected to spend around three days in the South marking her first campaign for the Congress.
Apparently, the Congress high command felt that the southern States, which together send 129 members to the Lok Sabha, is where the impact of the Nehru family can be consolidated. Karnataka has in the past returned Indira Gandhi to the Lok Sabha soon after the Emergency and thus has a fond place in the hearts of the Nehru family.
Also, the Congress wants to send a message across to the people of TN that the party has high regard for them, in light of the Jain Commission interim report observations on Tamils in connection with Rajiv Gandhi's assassination.
After her southern tour, Sonia is slated to return to Delhi and hit the northern belt after a brief rest. In the North, she is likely to address meetings in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and
Haryana. Following the northern part of her campaign, she is expected to visit the western and eastern parts of the country.
The North-East is likely to be the last part of her first round of campaigning. ``Weather conditions in the North-East are such that a helicopter can't be flown now. She will begin from the South and carry on from there. The precise details sill be announced in a day or two,'' said Margaret Alva, part of the five-member committee which is coordinating between 10, Janpath, and the AICC on Sonia's campaign.
Other members of this committee are Jitendra Prasada, in-charge of the party's Central coordination committee, Ghulam Nabi Azad, as head of the Congress campaign committee, Pranab Mukherjee and Ambika Soni. The Congress also sought to play down the differences between 10, Janpath, and party president Sitaram Kesri today.
``All that was said (from Sonia's side) was that the party could have announced the nominations of all five AICC general secretaries instead of just two. It is
the party president's prerogative to announce nominations of his general secretaries. But it was felt that the other three (Madhavrao Scindia, Tariq Anwar and Oscar Fernandes) are no less important since all of them will be contesting,'' added Alva.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
