Rahul meets Karunakaran, discusses party affairs

NEW DELHI: Rahul Gandhi, the youngest Congress Working Committee (CWC) member on Sunday met veteran party leader K Karunakaran and discussed the organizational revamp, said party sources.
 
The 37-year-old Amethi MP visited the Kerala House here, where Karunakaran was staying, around 4.30 pm "Rahul had discussions with the leader for more than half an hour. He wanted to know Karunakaran's views on the organizational matters of the party," said a source.
 
The octogenarian former Kerala chief minister, who had quit the Congress only to return after a year, has recently been inducted into the CWC, the apex decision making forum of the ruling party, as a permanent invitee.
 
Gandhi has been meeting senior party leaders to take their views on the Congress party's organizational revamp. He is believed to have had a meeting also with S.M. Krishna, former Maharashtra governor who quit the post earlier this year to join the party's campaign ahead of last month's assembly elections in Karnataka.
 
The Congress faced a humiliating defeat in Karnataka where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) formed a government last week.
 
The CWC, which met Saturday to assess the current political situation, has admitted that the party failed to understand the aspirations of its voters at the grassroots level and that the party cadres have to work hard to overcome the electoral reverses ahead of the upcoming assembly polls and the 2009 general elections.