CM worried over cold response to Sonia's Dec 23 rally

MUMBAI: Lukewarm response by Congressmen for a preparatory meeting to discuss Sonia Gandhi’s December 23 rally in Mumbai has left party leaders worried.

Just about half of the Congress MPs, MLAs and corporators turned up for the meeting called by CM Vilasrao Deshmukh on Sunday to fine-tune preparations for the party chief’s first election rally in Mumbai on December 23.

The meeting was all the more important considering that the Congress is trying to make some kind of a statement by organising Sonia’s rally at Shivaji Park, an uphill task considering size of the ground. The CM wanted to leave nothing to chance and wanted to review the preparations for the rally.

The meeting, however, proved to be a dampener since barring only two, other MPs preferred to steer clear of it. The only ones who showed up were city Congress chief Gurudas Kamat and North Central MP Eknath Gaikwad. The star-studded cast of the Mumbai Congress team such as Govinda, Priya Dutt and Milind Deora were absent.