The announcement could also take the edge off the criticism that is expected to surface at a meeting of the Congress Party in Parliament (CPP) this morning.
This meeting was fixed after a group of MPs, including Tariq Anwar, Bhupinder Singh Hooda and PC Chacko, called repeatedly for an opportunity for an open-ended discussion on the political issues, such as corruption, which the party has to face. Raising the corruption issue is their oblique way to criticise Rao and suggest that the party needs a leader with a clean image.
At a meeting with MPs from Kerala and Karnataka yesterday, Rao told the members they could discuss such issues on Friday. Chacko and former Kerala speaker VM Sudheeran had raised them.
If Rao's announcement of an early AICC session gets him a reprieve today, he will be able to say he allowed three extra CPP meetings for discussion by members and met members from various states in groups during the session.
Later, his critics suspect, he might let the promise of an AICC session fade amid the heat of the UP elections. He did not promise the AICC session personally while speaking to the Kerala and Karnataka members but his managers stated that he would convene the meet immediately after the UP elections.
By then, however, the party's organisational elections are scheduled to be underway and it will not be possible to requisition a meeting before the new AICC is elected, since the party allows two months for the CWC to fix a date after a requisition is submitted.
Rao had agreed to the six CWC members' demand to convene an AICC meeting when they first made it soon after the party's poor performance in the Lok Sabha elections last May. Tentative dates were even fixed, around July 7, but the meeting never took place.
In any case, the party's constitution does not provide any procedure to remove an incumbent party president. The only way is to press him to resign, perhaps by passing a resolution criticising his policies. Rao's critics have been assured that Sonia Gandhi would send a message obliquely criticising Rao, or perhaps even attend the AICC session.
Some of Rao's loyalists say he will not quit even if special judge Ajit Bharihoke, who is now hearing the Lakhubhai Pathak cheating case, were to summon him to the court and then refuse him bail.
Rao told some senior leaders who had recently advised him that he ought to step down that he would do so if the party agreed on a single name for his replacement. He apparently counts on their inability to agree on a consensus choice.
The fact that a large number of party MPs still back Rao weighs heavily in his favour. Less than a dozen MPs have raised the demand for a wide-ranging discussion in the CPP. One senior leader estimated that no more than 35-40, less than a third, of Congress members in the Lok Sabha would oppose Rao, making a split impossible.
Leaders like Sharad Pawar might try to persuade a third of the party's Lok Sabha MPs to split by promising to make them ministers in a coalition UF-Congress government, but just a third of the Congress would not be good enough to keep the UF government afloat.
