NEW DELHI, July 3 � An anxious AICC has convened a meeting of Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, PCC president Anjan Dutta and estranged leader Himanta Biswa Sarma on July 8 to work out a compromise, party sources informed.
The seriousness with which AICC has taken up the issue of rebellion can be gauged from the fact that the meeting on Wednesday would be chaired by vice president Rahul Gandhi and also attended by AICC general secretary in-charge, Dr CP Joshi.
Party leaders expect to work out some solution and manage to placate Sarma by offering him some major responsibility in the organisation.
Confirming the meeting, PCC president Anjan Dutta said that though he was slated to reach Delhi on April 6, he may not be able to make it on Monday because he has organised an Iftaar party that day. �Yes, we are likely to meet on July 8,� he said, but added that the AICC general secretary is yet to formally confirm it.
�I was told that I may have to go to Delhi,� Dutta told this newspaper from Guwahati.
The development took place even as Sarma today denied having served an ultimatum to the AICC. Sarma called up this Correspondent and clarified that his meeting with Dr C P Joshi was a routine one.
Earlier, he tweeted and said that, �Not to talk about ultimatum, I did not even raise any issue before @drcpjoshi. It was just a courtesy call. Some vested interest is doing this.�
As reported, Sarma met Dr Joshi on Wednesday and expressed his dismay over the recent developments in the party. He had conveyed that he and his group were running out of patience.
The developments in Assam, among the few remaining bastions of the Congress party, has left its leadership worried.
Sarma and his group had raised the banner of revolt last year against Tarun Gogoi�s leadership. Though the AICC indulged in some firefighting then and even rushed Mallikarjun Kharge to Guwahati on a stock-taking mission, 24 Akbar Road did little to defuse the crisis permanently.
