The 'sabbatical' of Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi forced the party to cancel many programmes and hold a low-key function for Ambedkar Jayanti.

The Congress may have had grand plans to celebrate the 124th birth anniversary of Bharat Ratna Babasaheb Ambedkar today, but the continuing sabbatical of Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi has reportedly forced the party to cancel a mega event and settle for a low-key function instead.

The party has now reportedly decided to launch its nationwide year-long celebrations at an event in Madhya Pradesh next month, which is expected to be attended by Rahul, according to this Indian Express report.

According to the report, the Congress had planned to organise a public meeting at Talkatora stadium in New Delhi, but Rahul's continuing absence resulted in the party to dropping the plan.

An event organised in Mhow will have former Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde as its chief guest.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Monday had chaired a meeting to finalise programmes for year-long celebration of 124th birth anniversary of Ambedkar as the party intends to reach out to Dalits in a bid to recover lost ground after a string of electoral reverses.

However, Rahul, who is co-chairperson of the Committee to finalise plans for the commemoration, wasn't present at the meeting.

Now the Congress Vice President will be participating in the programmes to commemorate Ambedkar's anniversary once he's back. He's expected to return, after a six-week sabbatical, in time for the party's 19 April Kisan-Khet Mazdoor rally in Delhi.

After his return the Congress plans to hold a slew of events at which Rahul will be present. Congress is holding events at Mumbai and Nagpur, due to their connection with Ambedkar's history, In Mumbai, it will be a Chintan Baithak, which will discuss the measures needed to empower and address social discrimination faced by marginalised sections.

"In the Chintan Baithak, we will discuss what had been our promises to Dalits and what we have delivered on them. We will introspect what we could not do and how we should be empowering Dalits and address their problems," Chairman of the AICC Scheduled Caste Department K Raju said.

Apart from the symbolism, some major changes are also underway in Congress to elevate Dalit leaders in states. Rahul has expressed the view many times in the past in party's internal meetings that non-emergence of strong Dalit leaders from the party fold was the main reason that the community was looking for leadership elsewhere.

(With inputs from PTI)