CWC to meet after Sonia election

New Delhi, May 3 (UNI) The Congress Working Committee (CWC) will meet here in the second week of this month to discuss the issues relating to reservation in central universities and elite institutions, job reservation in the private sector, internal security and the poll outcome in five states.

''The meeting will be held only after May 11 when the results of the assebly polls in Tamil nadu, Assam, West Bengal, Kerala and Pondicherry are expected,'' AICC sources said here today.

The party managers are keen to have the CWC meeting immediately after the poll verdict as the occasion could be used to congratulate Congress President Sonia Gandhi who is projected to be in a position to return to the Lok Sabha with a record margin from Rae Bareli seat, which she had resigned two months ago in the wake of the office-of-profit controversy.

Asked if the five seats in the CWC, the highest policy making body of the Congress heading the UPA coalition government at the centre, would be filled up by the Party President before the meeting, the sources said ''the President could nominate five persons any time she desires.'' Five seats were left vacant at the time of the revamping of the CWC and the AICC early this year. It was then reported that the seats were left unfilled to accommodate Amethi MP Rahul Gandhi at the AICC plenary in Hyderabad held later in the same month.

With Rahul Gandhi himself expressing his desire to devote himself fully to the party affairs in Uttar Pradesh, which goes to polls next year, it is not known if he would be nominated to the CWC before the meeting scheduled this month.

Since the issue of reservation in institutions of higher learning lacked unanimity within the top echelons of the Congress, the CWC would discuss the issue to give shape to the party's stand. The same would be the case with regard to the clamouring for SC and ST reservation in the private sector.

Sources said a date immediately after May 11 is more possible because all the leaders would be in the capital city in view of the extended budget session of Parliament beginning on May 10.

UNI SH RP BD1826