Rahul Gandhi attends Congress Core Committee meeting on Telangana

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi attended the Congress Core Committee meeting for the first time on Friday as the top leadership held deliberations to take a concrete view on the Telangana issue.

This is the first time, Rahul Gandhi is attending a meeting of the Congress Core Group as party Vice President. Rahul Gandhi also heads a special group set up by the party for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

The Congress Vice President had been organising regular meetings of party leaders of states in AICC to prepare the state units for the polls. On Friday also he held consultations with leaders of poll-bound Rajasthan at the AICC headquarters.

The Congress core group is an interface between the party and the government and is chaired by party president Sonia Gandhi, while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Finance Minister P Chidamabaram, Defence Minister A K Antony, Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde and the Congress President's political secretary Ahmed Patel are its members.

The group usually meets every Friday at the Prime Minister's official residence and formulates opinion on key issues confronting the government.