New Delhi: Having faced dissenting voices over some key issues like abrogation of Article 370, the Congress party on Wednesday formed a 17-member policy study group which would advise Congress president Sonia Gandhi on crucial upcoming issues like the Citizenship Amendment Bill, National Registrar of Citizens and the strategy for the coming winter session of Parliament.

The group would be headed Mrs Gandhi herself and would comprise of leaders including her son and former party president Rahul Gandhi, former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, AICC general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Ahmed Patel, Randeep Surjewala, Sushmita Dev, Rajiv Satav and Kapil Sibal. “Whenever the Congress president needs advice on key policy issues, this group will meet and deliberate,” Mr Venugopal told this newspaper.

The first meeting of the group has been called by Mrs Gandhi at 10 am on October 25, just a day after the results of Assembly in Maharashtra and Haryana are announced. Though the Congress is expected to continue its downward spiral as far as the results are concerned, some sections of the party hope for a decent showing in Haryana.

The genesis of the policy group, however, can be seen in these very Ass-embly polls in the run-up to which many Congress leaders had spoken in dissenting voices.  The chief issue among all was the abrogation of Article 370.

Confusion was galore in the Congress’ reaction to the event, with many leaders openly saying they supported the decision as public opinion was in its favour.

The party had initially put forward a nuanced stand, saying though it was in in-principle in support of the decision, it opposed the manner in which it was effected. There were, in fact, acrimonious scenes at a meeting of the Congress Work-ing Committee in August, where Mr Gandhi asked Jyotiraditya Scindia to give an explanation for his tweet supporting the abrogation of Article 370.

Following this, a meeting of all its general secretaries, state in-charges, chairpersons of AICC departments and MPs was called to explain the party’s stand on the issue.