New Delhi, Feb 19, 2023, IANS

New Delhi, Feb 19 (IANS): The Congress Steering Committee will meet on February 24 to finalise the agenda for the party's plenary session in Raipur, while the party cleared the names of 1,338 elected and 487 co-opted AICC members who will attend.

The plenary will discuss the roadmap for the upcoming Assembly elections in 2023 and the General Elections in 2024.

There will around 15,000 people present, including 9,915 PCC delegates with 3,000 co-opted PCC delegates.

Others will include district Presidents of the party and the 120 who walked beside Rahul Gandhi all through the Bharat Jodo Yatra and office bearers of frontal organisations.

However, as per the Congress Constitution, only elected AICC members can vote in the elections to the Congress Working Committee (CWC), the party's highest decision-making body.

As per Article 14 of the Constitution: "The co-opted members at the AICC, PCC and lower levels shall not exercise any voting right in any organisational election nor shall they contest any election in the organisation. However, no person who is a co-opted member shall be debarred for that reason from seeking election to full membership of any Committee in normal manner."

If the voting takes place, the party will ensure proper representation from SCs, STs, women, OBCs, and minorities, party leaders said, adding 704 AICC delegates are from general category, 381 from OBC, 228 from minority communities, 192 from Scheduled Castes and 133 from Scheduled Tribes.

At a joint press conference, General Secretary Tariq Anwar said: "In the plenary, the roadmap for the election will be discussed as the party has rejuvenated during the Bharat Jodo Yatra.

General Secretary, Organisation K.C. Venugopal said that the tagline of the plenary will be "hath se hath jodo" -- the ongoing outreach programme which started on January 26.

Congress General Secretary in-charge of Chhattisgarh, Kumari Selja said 235 of the delegates are women and 501 delegates are below the age of 50 years.