Sources said on Monday that Rahul Gandhi would be doing the honours in the absence of his mother Sonia, the party president who is convalescing in a US hospital after a major surgery.
Sources said the decision was made at the Congress Core Group meeting here on Sunday with a view to send a strong message to the party cadres that the change in leadership was imminent – both at the party and the government level. The Core Group meeting was presided over by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and was attended, among others, by Finance Minister Pranab Mukerjee, Defence Minister AK Antony and senior party functionaries Ahmed Patel and Janadrhan Dwivedi.