Rao promptly said there would be other meetings. He had arrived to take the chair half-way through the meeting, when it was clear that it was going smoothly according to the agenda.
The request for other meetings came from Tariq Anwar, who heads the party's minority cell. Anwar had asked for Rao's resignation in a recent newspaper interview. Last Friday, along with four other prominent party MPs, he had asked for a full discussion on corruption within a week.
Asked whether Anwar had specifically asked at yesterday's meeting for a discussion on corruption, CPP spokesperson Suresh Kalmadi told reporters: He may have mentioned it to you all, but he did not mention it there.
Priya Ranjan Das Munshi, one of the other four who signed the letter, only suggested at yesterday's meeting that CPP meetings should be held in the evening, since morning meetings only allowed about an hour for discussion before the houses met.
The agenda of yesterday's meeting, which was announced after that letter reached Rao, was limited to electoral reform. The most significant speeches that Kalmadi reported contained opposition to the government's move to reduce the minimum age for candidates. Priyanka Gandhi would be the most prominent potential beneficiary of such a move.
Other speeches concerned the need for the process of giving identity cards to continue, on the move to reserve 30 per cent of seats in legislatures for women and about required changes in the anti-defection law.
