Cong to strategise its campaign in Opp-ruled States, give manifesto final shape
The Congress Working Committee (CWC) on Monday is likely to take the final call on AAP-Congress alliance in the national Capital and also strategise on how to run the party’s campaigns in Opposition-ruled States like West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh without annoying its prospective post-poll allies.
Sources said the Congress leadership will also give a final shape to the party’s manifesto which may include among others populist programmes like employment guarantee schemes, loan waivers to farmers, and welfare schemes for youth and women voters.
The CWC, which is the apex body of the grand old party, will also discuss possible star campaigners for the party in the General Elections. Sources said there could be gag orders to certain leaders as some of the comments and barbs by party’s senior leaders gave opportunities to ruling parties to embarrass the Congress. The Congress leaders will discuss pros and cons of aligning with the AAP. While the opinion within the Congress is divided on this issue, NCP Chief Sharad Pawar is actively involved in getting the two parties together.
The issue has divided Delhi Congress unit between two camps — one led by former Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and another by former Union Minister Ajay Maken and AICC Delhi incharge PC Chacko. Sources said the AAP, which wrested power from Congress four years ago, is keen to take on BJP in an alliance with the Congress despite conflicting utterances by senior leaders of both the parties. Delhi has seven Lok Sabha seats, all represented by BJP now.
The other issue that the party may discuss is the nature of campaign to be run by it in Opposition-run States. The need to do this was felt after Rahul Gandhi’s vitriolic attack on Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee during his poll campaign in Malda.
The party manifesto for the Lok Sabha election is being framed by a committee headed by P Chidambaram, which has some other members too. The Congress has already launched an exercise to involve people from different sections of society and held several rounds of consultations with them across the country, to include their views in the manifesto. It has also launched an online portal to seek views and expectations of people from the grand old party ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. The top party leaders have promised to make the manifesto a comprehensive document that will include views of all sections.
“The contents of the manifesto will be discussed at the CWC to be chaired by Congress president Rahul. Top Congress leaders, including former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, senior Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi, Ahmed Patel, AK Antony, Ghulam Nabi Azad, P Chidambaram, Mallikarjun Kharge, Ambika Soni and Anand Sharma, will be present at the meeting,” said a AICC leader.
Former Chief Ministers Siddharamaiah, Oomen Chandy, Tarun Gogoi and Harish Rawat will attend the meeting. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Jyotiraditya Scindia, who took charge last month as AICC general secretary UP east and UP west respectively, will also be present.
The party also released its ninth list of 10 candidates for the Lok Sabha elections, fielding former Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s son Karti Chidambaram from Sivaganga in Tamil Nadu. Karti is facing trial in corruption cases, including the INX media money laundering case. Former NCP leader Tariq Anwar was nominated by the party for the Katihar Lok Sabha seat in Bihar, which he currently represents. The party also fielded its former general secretary BK Hariprasad from the Bangalore South constituency in Karnataka.
The others whose names have been cleared by the party’s central election committee include Mohammed Javed from Kishanganj and Uday Singh alias Pappu Singh from Purnia in Bihar and Haji Farooq Mir from Baramulla in Jammu and Kashmir. With this the party has fielded a total of 227 candidates so far and sealed an alliance in Bihar, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Jammu and Kashmir.