Back from Europe, Rahul to visit Mumbai on January 15 and 16

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, who was back from Europe trip on Sunday, will visit Mumbai on January 15 and 16 during which he will hold meetings with party leaders and is expected to hold an interaction with students.

Rahul on Tuesday held confabulations with a number of senior party leaders, including Amarinder Singh, chief of Punjab Congress where the party is making a bid for power in the 2017 assembly polls.

The Congress vice president is learnt to have enquired in detail about the Pathankot terror attack during his meetings with party leaders.

Sources said Rahul as well as Congress president Sonia Gandhi were of the view that the decision to hold the Indo-Pak foreign secretary-level talks should be left to the government based on merits and ‘since the government has not involved the major opposition party’ on the issue, it should not pre-empt the government’s decision on the matter.

Sources said that both the Congress President and the Vice President were of the view that the party should not take a strident stand on the matter either for or against the talks as a decision on the issue fell in the domain of government.

Congress has maintained from time to time that terror and talks cannot got together.

Rahul also met AICC general secretaries Digvijay Singh and Mohan Prakash, AICC Communication Department chief Randeep Surjewala and AICC in-charge for Delhi P C Chacko on Tuesday and took stock of the political developments in the country and within the party during his absence.