Priya meets Sonia again

While the Congress party officially keeps a distance from the Sanjay Dutt case, citing limitations of a political party in such matters, the party High Command is playing a proactive role putting to use in-house legal experts and ministers to provide assistance and counsel to the Dutt family. On Wednesday, Congress MP Priya Dutt met Congress President Sonia Gandhi for the second time since the TADA court sentenced her brother to six years in rigorous imprisonment. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi and Science 038; Technology Minister Kapil Sibal were learnt to have joined them soon after and discussed the petition filed by Dutt in the Supreme Court.

Dasmunsi and Sibal were in the forefront of the campaign to support the embattled actor, arguing that his father Sunil Dutt epitomised what the Congress stands for8212;secularism and national integration. They said the Congress should stand by the Dutt family in its hour of crisis. The Congress has, however, refused to go public with its support to the jailed actor leaving it to the legal process to work itself out.