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Congress decides to join Rabri govt

The Congress has decided to be part of the Rabri Devi government but a formal announcement will be made only after the party's working committee meeting on Monday.

The Bihar issue came up for discussions at the emergency meeting of the working committee here today but a formal decision was postponed till Monday since most working committee members were absent. Senior leaders K Karunakaran, Pranab Mukherjee, A K Antony and Rajesh Pilot could not participate since the meeting was called at short notice.

All-India Congress Committee general secretary in-charge-of-Bihar Mohsina Kidwai, who was camping in Patna for the past one week, briefed the working committee members about steps taken by central observers to keep the party MLAs together.

Briefing newspersons after the meeting, party spokesperson Ajit Jogi said the Congress would launch a nation-wide agitation against the budget levies on foodgrains, supplied through the public distribution system, and urea till they were rolled back.

Party sources said the Congress, which succeeded in having the controversial Gujarat government circular withdrawn, would use the issue of levies to drive a wedge between the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies. The allies are already up in arms, demanding that the government roll back these levies, they claimed.

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