The improved electoral reap in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home turf Gujarat recently has made the Congress pull up its socks with a new vigour and take corrective measures to wrest crucial Hindi belt States of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan which go to Assembly polls next year-end. Newly-elected Congress president Rahul Gandhi has sent a missive, particularly to his party workers in Madhya Pradesh, to start groundwork now to identify issues, concerns and above all winnable candidates for the assembly polls in November 2018.
As part of its strategy and in order to avoid last-minute rebellion and internal rife in the crucial State which it lost 15 years ago, the party has asked to request or convince the leaders who had lost in the last two-three elections to vacate the seat for the young leaders. In MP too, just like Gujarat, the party is struggling for a local leadership. However, it is not the case in Rajasthan due to the clout of former CM Ashok Gehlot and for which the Congress is confident enough to take over the reins from the incumbent Vasundhara Raje regime.
The MP unit of the Congress has said the party will start the exercise of identifying probable candidates from mid-January. As per the party’s strategy, it will primarily focus on 60 to 65 seats where the party could not win in the past two elections.
“We will start the candidate selection process for the next year’s Assembly elections after January 15. The process of streamlining the organisational structure in the State will also be completed by the next month,” AICC general secretary and party in-charge of Madhya Pradesh, Deepak Babaria, told The Pioneer.
Babaria added the Congress chief has indicated to the MP party leaders to pull up their socks, work hard and hunt for younger faces. “We would request the leaders who lost in the last elections consistently to pave way for the newer and preferably young leaders. The leaders who were defeated in the last two-three elections could be the choice for the next General Elections,” said a party leader from Madhya Pradesh.
“In MP, we need to first bring to table the heavyweights like Digvijay Singh, Kamal Nath and Jyotiraditya Scindia. Only a proper coordination between them can work for the party,” he said. While Singh is a former Chief Minister, Kamal Nath and Scindia enjoy mass support in their areas.
For Rajasthan, lok Sabha MP Sachin Pilot said the Congress will launch an “affirmative and positive” campaign in the State to counter the “acrimonious” charge of the BJP and advocate a new model of governance while highlighting the failures of the State Government. He said the results of recent by-elections to local bodies which gave the Congress an upper hand is an indicative for the prospect of the party. The party has already launched its “Mera booth, mera gaurav (My booth, my pride)” campaign and will soon unroll its mass contact programme across the State.