Bengaluru: Congress President Rahul Gandhi will kick off the campaign for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls from Haveri in North Karnataka during the first or second week of March.
As a prelude to this, Mr Rahul has convened a meeting of state leaders during the first week of March to work out the party strategy. In fact, the Congress president was to hold the Haveri rally on March 4 but put it off to March 9 on account of Shivaratri celebrations. Haveri has been strategically selected since it is the gateway to the Mumbai-Karnataka region and also a BJP stronghold. The Congress party has not won this Lok Sabha seat for many years.
Party sources told Deccan Chronicle that after the Haveri rally, many rallies had been planned across the state. The state leaders have been asked to make this rally successful since it would be the first rally to be addressed by Mr Gandhi for the coming Lok Sabha elections.
Meanwhile, KPCC President Dinesh Gundurao held a meeting to work out the strategy for the LS polls. He has appointed three secretaries for each assembly constituency to drum up support for the party. Learning a lesson from the BJP, the Congress has decided to strengthen its booth level committees and be in touch with every household in the constituency to woo them to the Congress party.
They had been asked to highlight the failures of the BJP led NDA government in the last five years and the effective functioning of the Congress as a responsible opposition party in the Lok Sabha by exposing major scams like Rafale and the deteriorating law and order situation across the nation.
Party workers have been instructed to campaign among people about the poor handling of the Kashmir issue resulting in an increase in incidents like Pulwama.
Meanwhile, AICC general secretary and in-charge of Karnataka affairs K.C. Venugopal held a closed door meeting with senior leaders to elicit their opinion on having an alliance with the JD(S) in the coming LS polls.
A majority of them felt they should not succumb to the pressure of the JD(S) during seat sharing talks as it is vital for the party to protect its existence in the state.
They clearly stated that all those seats currently held by the Congress should not be given to the JD(S) at any cost.
Besides, both Mandya and Hassan seats should be fought by the Congress party because it has the capacity to win these two seats, the leaders felt.
Mr Venugopal reportedly promised to convey their feeling to Mr Rahul Gandhi during the meeting to be held to finalise seat allocation.
