Senior Cong leaders to meet Shivakumar in jail

New Delhi, Sep 25 (IANS) Senior Congress leaders Ahmed Patel and K.C. Venugopal will visit party colleague D.K. Shivakumar in Tihar jail on Thursday, four days after Congress president Sonia Gandhi and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met ex-Finance Minister P. Chidambaram in the prison.Patel, the Congress treasurer, and Venugopal, the party General Secretary in-charge of organisation, will meet former Karnataka Minister in a show of solidarity.Shivakumar, considered the party's trouble-shooter in Karnataka, is in jail in an alleged money laundering case.Earlier on September 23, Sonia Gandhi and Singh visited Chidambaram in Tihar jail, where he is lodged in connection with the INX deal.Before her visit, Sonia Gandhi had sent Patel and Ghulam Nabi Azad to meet Chidambaram on September 18.Shivkumar rose in prominence when he hosted Gujarat MLAs to avert possible poaching by the BJP a few years back during the Rajya Sabha election in which Patel was a candidate. Patel won the election.
--IANS miz/akk/pcj