The Congress Working Committee (CWC), the party’s highest executive wing, will meet on Saturday in Delhi. According to media reports, discussions on party chief elections, a long-pending issue within the party, are likely to take place as assembly elections in some of the key states in India, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Goa are due for next year.

The meeting, which will be the first in-person meeting in over 18 months, will likely be attended by senior Congress leaders like  Ashok Gehlot, Bhupesh Baghel, Charanjit Channi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra among several others.

Apart from the party chief elections, UP’s Lakhimpur Kheri violence, where at least eight people died after a car mowed down protesting farmers, is expected to be a focal point. The incident led to major political protests, and several Congress leaders including Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra met the families of the victims after initially being disallowed by the UP Police.

The CWC is also expected to extend support to the Congress delegation that met President Ram Nath Kovind urging for dismissal of the junior minister of state Ajay Mishra, and an independent probe in the Lakhimpur Kheri incident by sitting judges of the Supreme Court or high court.

Price rise, farmers’ protest and economic condition will also be discussed in the meeting, reported PTI quoting sources.

Top Congress leaders, including Kapil Sibal last month, demanded a CWC meeting to elect the new chief as he was unsure who was taking a decision within the party in the absence of a full-time president and asserting that G23 leaders’ grouping is “not a Jee Huzur 23”.

Former leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad had also written to the Congress president to convene a meeting of the CWC soon.

During the meeting, the party leadership is also likely to decide on the schedule for electing the new Congress chief as a schedule proposing organisation elections in June this year was rejected because it was close on the heels of the five assembly polls in April-May.

Congress leader Sonia Gandhi took over as the interim Congress president of the party in August 2019 after Rahul Gandhi resigned in the wake of the party’s Lok Sabha debacle in May 2019.