Friday, October 7 2005 20:14 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Chandigarh: Congress President Sonia Gandhi today (Oct 7, 2005) announced that the AICC Plenary Session will be held in January next year.

She said this at the opening day of the two-day Congress Chief Ministers' Conclave here. However, the venue of the twice-postponed session was not announced.

The Plenary Session, which formally endorses her election as the AICC President marking the completion of organizational polls, was to have been held on October 22 and 23 at Hyderabad, but was put off following the announcement of the schedule for assembly elections in Bihar.

Earlier, the party had indicated that the Plenary would be held in September.

Fifteen Chief Ministers of the Congress-ruled states and one Deputy Chief Minister, besides six AICC General Secretaries and seven Central Ministers from the party are attending the meet, the first such exercise after the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government came to power at the Centre.

The Chief Ministers are Y S Rajashekhara Reddy (Andhra Pradesh), Gegong Apang (Arunachal Pradesh), Tarun Gogoi (Assam), Sheila Dikshit (Delhi), Pratapsing Rane (Goa), Bhupinder Singh Hooda (Haryana), Virbhadra Singh (Himachal Pradesh), Dharam Singh (Karnataka), Oommen Chandy (Kerala), Vilasrao Deshmukh (Maharashtra), O Ibobi Singh (Manipur), D D Lapang (Meghalaya), N Rangaswamy (Pondicherry) and Narain Dutt Tiwari (Uttaranchal) and Amarinder Singh (Punjab). The lone Deputy Chief Minister present was Mangat Ram Sharma of Jammu and Kashmir where the Congress is sharing power with Mufti Mohd Sayeed-led People's Democratic Party (PDP) Government.