Chiru to join Cong before Rahul Gandhi

Regardless of the fact that Congress president Sonia Gandhi will not be present to witness the event, Praja Rajyam Party president K Chiranjeevi will complete the formalities of the long pending merger by taking the membership of the Congress party in New Delhi on August 20.

According to highly placed sources, Mr Chiranjeevi will take the membership of Congress party on August 20 in the presence of All India Congress Committee general secretary Rahul Gandhi. Following Mr Chiranjeevi formally joining the Congress fold, the PRP MLAs will join the Congress party on August 22 in the presence of Pradesh Congress Committee president Botsa Satyanarayana at Gandhi Bhavan.

With Ms Sonia Gandhi away from New Delhi due to her surgery for an undisclosed ailment, the party sources said that Mr Chiranjeevi decided to go ahead with the merger of his party in the presence of Mr Rahul Gandhi to avoid further delay.

Earlier, Sonia Gandhi wrote a letter to Chiranjeevi inviting him to come to New Delhi between August 7 and 10 to complete the long pending merger process. The formal merger between the two parties had been getting delayed on one account or the other. Mr Chiranjeevi had announced his desire to merge his party with the Congress on February 6, 2011, less than three years of forming the Praja Rajyam Party.