DK Shivakumar is in jail in an alleged money laundering case

Senior Congress leaders Ahmed Patel and KC Venugopal will visit party colleague DK 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.

Mr Patel, the Congress treasurer, and Mr Venugopal, the party General Secretary in-charge of organisation, will meet former Karnataka Minister in a show of solidarity.

Mr 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 Manmohan Singh visited P Chidambaram in Tihar jail, where he is lodged in connection with the INX media case.

Before her visit, Sonia Gandhi had sent Ahmed Patel and Ghulam Nabi Azad to meet Mr Chidambaram on September 18.

DK Shivakumar 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. Ahmed Patel won the election.