Congress President Sonia Gandhi
Forty-one of the 43 Congress MLAs, who were taken to a Bengaluru resort and helped ensure the victory of party president Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel in the recent Rajya Sabha elections, will visit Tirupati temple in Andhra Pradesh on August 22, said Gujarat Congress chief Bharatsinh Solanki on Thursday.
Before leaving for Tirupati, they, along with the other two MLAs — Gayasuddin Sheikh and Javed Peerzada — will meet the Congress president and vice-president Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi on August 21.
From Delhi, they will fly to Chennai from where they will go to Tirupati. Sheikh and Peerzada will return after meeting Sonia and Rahul because of personal engagements on August 23.
The visit was finalised at a meeting of state Congress leaders with Sonia in Delhi on Thursday. The meeting was attended by Patel, Solanki, Congress’s Gujarat affairs in-charge Ashok Gehlot and four AICC secretaries attached with the state.
Speaking with The Indian Express over phone from Delhi, Solanki said: “In Tirupati, they (the MLAs) will pray for peace… development of the people of Gujarat.”
Shailesh Parmar, Congress chief whip in the state Assembly, said the MLAs, during their stay at the Bengaluru resort, had taken a vow that they would visit Triupati temple if their candidate won the Rajya Sabha poll.
