The Congress is celebrating its 139th foundation day on Thursday and to mark the occasion, party president Mallikarjun Kharge, former party chief Rahul Gandhi and several top leaders are in the Maharashtra city of Nagpur.
The party has also planned a mega rally 'Hain Tayyar Hum' (We are ready) to sound the bugle for the upcoming 2024 general elections.
Earlier, it was said that former party chief Sonia Gandhi and general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra would also address the rally, but it was later reported by local media that they won't be attending the mega event.
Earlier in the day, Kharge unfurled the party flag at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) headquarters in New Delhi.
He even met the Kharge with Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, party MP Rajiv Shukla, party general secretary KC Venugopal and other senior members at the AICC headquarters in Delhi.
"On the foundation day, it is our duty to gather in large numbers and send a message across the country that the Congress party will never move away from its ideologies and will move forward with its ideologies," Kharge said while talking to the media in New Delhi.
Talking about the party's mega rally in Nagpur, the party chief said that they want to send a message from Nagpur that they are working with 2024 Lok Sabha elections in mind.
Meanwhile, talking about the 'Hain Tayyar Hum' rally, Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera said that the 'message is what the entire nation wants to hear'.
"Nagpur is a historic place, the roots of the Congress were strengthened and grew from Nagpur. Maharashtra and Nagpur play a huge role in the organisation of the Congress," he said while listing the reasons for choosing Nagpur as the venue for the mega rally.
The rally is significant because it is being held in Nagpur, the headquarters of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), considered the parent ideology of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and the Congress has locked horns with both.
Earlier, Rahul Gandhi said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that he was proud to be a part of the Congress.
"I am proud to be part of an organisation whose foundation is truth and non-violence, whose pillars are love, brotherhood, respect and equality, and whose roof is patriotism," Gandhi's tweet in Hindi read.
Describing the party workers as lions and lionesses, he greeted them on the occasion of the party's foundation.
When Was Congress Founded
The Indian National Congress (INC) was founded in 1885 by Allan Octavian Hume, a retired British Indian Civil Service (ICS) officer, to provide a platform for civil and political dialogue among educated Indians.
It was founded on 28 December at the Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit College in Bombay (now Mumbai) in the presence of 72 delegates from across the country. Prominent delegates included Dadabhai Naoroji, Surendranath Banerjee, Badruddin Tyabji, Pherozeshah Mehta, W C Bonnerjee, S Ramaswami Mudaliar, S Subramania Iyer and Romesh Chunder Dutt.