File pic: Congress president Sonia Gandhi
Congress President Sonia Gandhi today met President Pranab Mukherjee in the backdrop of the United Progressive Alliance or UPA pitching for Leader of Opposition status for her party in the Lok Sabha.
Mrs Gandhi, who yesterday made a strong pitch for the Congress being given the post of Leader of Opposition, held a meeting with party MPs in Lok Sabha in the morning.
The meeting came after UPA MPs decided to write to the Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan seeking an immediate decision on the issue.
The Congress has 44 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha. The party has already asserted that it would exercise all options to ensure a "democratically correct, logical conclusion" on the issue and has not ruled out the option of approaching the court on the matter.
Sources close to Mrs Gandhi, however, said that her meeting with the President was a "courtesy call".
Mrs Gandhi had been calling on Mr Mukherjee regularly ever since the former Finance Minister in the UPA II government became President in July 2012.