Bengaluru: Leaders of the ruling Congress reached out and wooed voters in the run up to next year’s elections to the Legislative Assembly through a new strategy, “Mane Manege Congress” (Congress at every doorstep), highlighting achievements of the four year old government, here on Saturday.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, party general secretary incharge of Karnataka K. C. Venugopal, KPCC president Dr G. Parameshwar, working president, Dinesh Gundurao, and other leaders launched the campaign in Mahadevapura Assembly constituency. The new initiative marks a major shift in the manner in which Congress handled elections, a pointed highlighted by a senior leader who explained “We are shifting from a mass based party to a cadre based party. We will set up booth level committees comprising a booth president, booth in charge and booth agent. In all, we will have 11 to 21 members in each committee."
To start with, the party has set up one booth committee in each ward and soon the network would have 66,000 booth-level workers covering all 224 Assembly constituencies. A booth-level workers' conference too is on the cards next month with party vice president Rahul Gandhi set to attend the event.
One of the tasks of party workers would be to distribute booklets in different languages, highlighting the work and achievements of the state government. These booklets contain details on all poll promises delivered by the government and various welfare schemes initiated so far, including Anna Bhagya, Ksheera Bhagya, Pashu Bhagya, and Arogya Bhagya. The party has decided to take credit for the mid-day meal, scholarships and completion of first phase of Metro rail and starting the second phase.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr Siddaramaiah ridiculed leaders of the state unit of BJP and dubbed them as “meterless” BJP leaders who failed to meet their leader, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and seek more funds for the state.
“BJP leaders are adept at speaking lies. They don't even have guts to speak in front of Mr Modi about the state's interests. Be it farm loan waiver or other issues, our state BJP leaders lack the courage to speak in front of him (Mr Modi). But they are adept at speaking lies,” he added.
Dr Parameshwar said the state government was successful in ensuring political stability and providing people friendly programmes with decisive leadership in the last five years.
