Cong prepares for centenary celebration of Gandhi’s historic 1924 Belagavi Session

Belagavi: AICC general secretary K C Venugopal on Tuesday reviewed preparations for the centenary celebrations of the 1924 Indian National Congress ses-sion, presided over by Mahatma Gandhi. The event is scheduled here on December 26 and 27.

The party has decided to hold a meeting of the Congress Working Commit-tee (CWC) on December 26 in Belagavi and a public meeting on December 27. AICC general secretary in charge of Karnataka, Randeep Singh Sur-jewala, and the party’s national treasurer and RajyaSabha MP from the state, Ajay Maken, also arrived along with Venugopal.

Leaders including Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Deputy Chief Minister and state congress chief D K Shivakumar, ministers, and party legislators at-tended a meeting to discuss the event at the party office here.

“We are organising a historic conference on December 26 and 27 in Bela-gavi remembering the hundredth anniversary of the congress session pre-sided over by Mahatma Gandhi. The Belagavi session of the Indian Nation-al Congress was a historic one in our Indian political history,” Venugopal said.

He told reporters here, “The AICC is holding an extended working commit-tee meeting on December 26 afternoon, followed by a massive rally on De-cember 27. We will finalise the details of the programme after discussions. We will also visit the sites to assess the arrangements.” The 39th session of the Indian National Congress, held in Belagavi in 1924, was the only Congress session presided over by Mahatma Gandhi.

Later, speaking to reporters after the meeting, Venugopal said the Belagavi conference is going to be the “biggest turning point” in Indian political histo-ry and for the Congress party. “We need to make the biggest decision from Belagavi on how to fight the dictatorship of the BJP and Narendra Modi,” he said. During the meeting, the party will analyse the current political situa-tion, and the BJP government’s laws endorsing their ideology, and discuss what Congress’ ideology stands for, he added.

Accusing the BJP of “destroying love and affection among people, spread-ing hatred in the name of religion, and dividing them”, Venugopal alleged that the saffron party was setting up a “Nafrat ka Bazaar” (market of hate) everywhere.. There is no equality in this country. The rich are becoming richer, and only one man’s interest is being protected now.

The poor are becoming poorer,” he said.

Shivakumar said that as part of the government programme, the statue of Mahatma Gandhi will be unveiled on December 26 on the premises of the Suvarna Vidhana Soudha by the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha and AICC President Mallikar-jun Kharge.

All MPs and legislators, across party lines, will be invited to the statueunveiling event, he added.