Chidambaram to lead All Party delegation to Kashmir

New Delhi, Sep : In order to make the All Party Delation to Kashmir a meaningful and result oriented,  the party today decided to nominate P. Chidambaram  as the head of the aforesaid delegation. Congress High Command has nominated Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee as part of the delegation, which was scheduled to visit the Valley on Monday.
A meeting held by Congress President Sonia Gandhi with senior party leaders decided to depute the two senior Ministers in the all party delegation, party sources said.
The decision is being seen as an endeavour to lend stature to the visit of the all party delegation to Kashmir.
The meeting, which was attended by Mr Chidambaram, Mr Mukherjee, Health Minister and former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, Defence Minister A K Antony, Minister of state in the Prime Minister’s Office Prithviraj Chavan (who is in charge of party affairs in J and K) and the Jammu and Kashmir PCC chief Saifuddin Soz, also discussed the party’s strategy on the Kashmir situation.
The meeting comes a day after the Congress Core Committee deliberated on the Kashmir situation.
The all party delegation is to visit the valley on Monday to assess the ground situation in the wake of recent violence that has claimed 90 lives since June.
The delegation will also visit Jammu.
The sources said the delegation would be in the state for three days during which it would meet people from all sections in the state including leaders of various political parties.
The decision to send an all party delegation was taken at an all party meeting on Kashmir on Wednesday.