Congress  held demonstrations across the city demanding immediate roll back of hike in toll tax for commercial vehicles, effected by BJP-ruled Municipal Corporation of Delhi.

The demonstrations are seen as Congress launching the election campaign for the municipal polls in the city which are scheduled to take place in April next year.

Slamming the BJP for hiking the toll tax, DPCC president J P Aggarwal said the demonstrations were held in 140 places across the city and party MLAs, MPs and several Delhi Ministers participated in them.

Congress leader Arjun Singh, a former union minister, chief minister and governor, who made a strong bid to become the Prime Minister in the mid-1990s, died of cardiac arrest in a New Delhi hospital on Friday evening. He was 80. He is survived two sons and a daughter. “He was in the hospital for the last 15 days. He was shifted to the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) yesterday (Thursday). He was suffering from chronic diseases,” All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Director R.C. Deka said.

“He was on life support,” Deka added.

A staunch loyalist of the Gandhi family, Arjun Singh was twice the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, governor of Punjab and commerce and human resource minister at the centre.

At the ongoing MCD budget session, Congress councillors accused BJP for not carrying out enough development work in the city in the past four years of its tenure. Congress councillor Anita Babbar read out a long list of projects announced by the BJP-led civic body in the last few years which are yet to take off.

MCD’s proposal to make Delhi dhalao-free, Babbar said, is in the dumps today. “Their door-to-door garbage collection project has not picked up. Dhalaos are still overflowing in the city. The garbage disposal system in the city is not very effective,” said Babbar.

Congress on Tuesday celebrated its 126th foundation day with its chief Sonia Gandhi unfurling the party flag at a function.

Top Congress leaders including Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, Union Ministers Pranab Mukherjee, A K Antony, S Jaipal Reddy, Kapil Sibal, G K Vasan, Kantilal Bhuria, Vayalar Ravi, Sachin Pilot, Delhi Chief Minister Shiela Dikshit and senior leaders R K Dhawan and M L Fotedar were among those present.

The Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and Mrs. Gandhi distributed sweets to children who had joined the function at the party headquarters.

Sonia Gandhi also laid the foundation stone for the new party headquarters in the capital.

The Indian National Congress was founded on this day in 1885.

Congress General Secretary Mukul Wasnik was heckled at the party plenary causing commotion with workers from Bihar accusing him of “selling” tickets in the just-concluded assembly elections in which the party got routed.

As Wasnik tried to fix a dysfunctional sound system on the dais, a number of delegates from Bihar raised slogans against him and demanded his removal.

Wasnik is in-charge of party affairs in Bihar.

As the sloganeering continued, Seva Dal activists were seen trying to pacify the angry delegates.

Soon after, slogans in favour of Wasnik were heard from some corners of the Plenary hall.

This continued for some time.

The 83rd plenary session of the Congress party began Saturday here with party president Sonia Gandhi chairing a committee to oversee the political, economic and foreign affairs resolutions.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh attended the meeting along with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Defence Minister A.K. Antony and party treasurer Motilal Vora at the Parliament House Annexe here.

Gandhi heads the Subjects Committee, the name of the decision-making panel of the party steering committee or the working committee.

The next two days of the three-day plenary session will be held at a sprawling tented township in Burari in northwest Delhi.

The Congress appointed party general secretary Digvijay Singh as in-charge of the party’s affairs in Assam in place of Law Minister M. Veerapa Moily.

Congress general secretary Janardan Dwivedi, who heads the party media department, said Singh will be the new general secretary for Assam.

A party source said the change has been made in view of the assembly elections in Assam next year.

Moily continues to be in-charge of party affairs in Andhra Pradesh. Party sources said the decision has been taken in view of Moily’s responsibility as law minister.

Singh was also in-charge of Assam during the last assembly elections.

BJP leader Arun Jaitley on Sunday slammed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for his remark that central funds had not been properly utilised by the Bihar government, saying “central funds are not Congress property”. Jaitley, who is Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, also said “the prime minister should not have made that remark on Bihar as a Congressman but as an economist”.

“The remark that was made yesterday – the money that the central government collects is the tax-payer’s money. People from Bihar also pay tax. Central funds are not the property of the Congress party,” Jaitley said.

On Saturday, the prime minister had told an election rally in Narpatganj assembly constituency in Bihar’s Araria district that funds provided by the central government were not utilised properly.

A one-day session of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) will be held in Delhi Nov 2, Congress general secretary Janardan Dwivedi said.

‘The one-day session will deal mainly with the schedule for election to the party’s working committee as decided by the party’s Central Election Authority (CEA),’ Dwivedi told reporters.

After Sonia Gandhi’s re-election as the party chief Sep 3, the working committee was converted as the steering committee.

‘The session will also adopt a resolution mainly dealing with the situation in the country,’ Dwivedi said.

According to the schedule drawn by CEA, the filing of nominations for working committee elections will start at 12 noon and continue till 3 p.m. on Nov 2. The list of contesting candidates will be published at 4.30 p.m. the same day after scrutiny. Election, if necessary, will take place between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. and results will be declared the next day.

Party leaders said the norms provide that 12 of the 25 members in the Congress Working Committee are to be elected. However, the AlCC delegates can also pass a resolution authorising Gandhi to select all the members, they said.

BJP attacked Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for comparing the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) with the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), saying only the mentally imblanced could make such comments.

‘This shows affected mentality. Only people who have lost their mental balance can make such a comparison,’ BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said.

‘SIMI is a banned terrorist organisation. RSS is a school of nationalism which has been working for the past 85 years. He (Gandhi) is making statements only for political benefit,’ Javedakar said.

He added that Gandhi’s comments reflected ‘immaturity and lack of knowledge’.

Speaking in Bhopal, Gandhi Wednesday termed RSS as ‘fanatical’ and equated it with the SIMI. He said both SIMI and the RSS hold fundamentalist views.