Close X
Saturday, September 21, 2024
ADVT 
India

Punjab Polls: Rahul Gandhi To Brainstorm With Congress Leaders

IANS, 06 Mar, 2016 11:54 AM
    After Uttar Pradesh, Congress leaders will brainstorm over their game plan for the Punjab polls in the presence of political strategist Prashant Kishor at a meeting called on March 12 by party vice president Rahul Gandhi.
     
    Congress has been out of power in Punjab for the past decade and, party sources said, Rahul Gandhi wanted the “bad patch” to end.
     
    Apart from the ruling SAD-BJP combine, the party is set to face a spirited challenge from AAP.
     
    Rahul has convened the meeting to facilitate a threadbare discussion with Punjab leaders to devise a winning strategy after two successive losses, with the last one then blamed by the AICC on the “overconfidence” of the state leadership.
     
    Congress sources said AICC has brought in Kishor to “help and assist” the Uttar Pradesh and Punjab units to craft the party’s strategy for the crucial polls next year.
     
    Kishor played a key role in victories of Narendra Modi-led BJP in the general elections and JD(U)-RJD-Congress alliance in Bihar assembly polls, which the Prime Minister and BJP President Amit Shah had turned into a prestige fight. 
     
    The meeting is being held at a time when state Congress leaders are getting increasingly wary about AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal’s aggressive campaign plans and his strategy of targeting voters through a vast army of volunteers. Kishor had effectively used his band of volunteers in the Bihar polls. 
     
    Talk is that Kishor has already conducted preliminary surveys and would come armed with inputs on what the Congress needed to do to win the state, after a string of disappointing losses. 
     
     
    Congress has declared Punjab PCC Chief Amarinder Singh as the party’s ‘face’ in the polls after Rahul Gandhi held a series of meeting with state leaders to persuade them to present a united face of the faction-ridden state unit. Singh, a former Chief Minister, is considered the most formidable leader of the party in the state. 
     
    Congress had lost the last assembly elections despite Rahul declaring Amarinder as the chief ministerial candidate in the midst of the campaign. 
     
    Since the debacle in the last Lok Sabha elections, Congress has been losing state after state. Rahul had held a meeting with Uttar Pradesh Congress leaders in New Delhi last week at which Kishor was present. It saw an intense discussion on how things could be turned around in the politically most crucial state. 
     
    Congress is in political wilderness in the key cow belt state since 1989 when the emergence of the ‘Mandal and Mandir’ issues aided the rise of the BSP. Talk in the Congress is that Kishor’s services could be utilised by the party in Narendra Modi’s home state Gujarat if he could give good results in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. 
     
    While UP and Punjab elections are scheduled early next year, Gujarat elections could be held at end of 2017 as the term of the assembly there ends on 22 January 2018.

    MORE India ARTICLES

    Centre Should Come Clean On 'Secret' Meet With Sharif: Congress

    Centre Should Come Clean On 'Secret' Meet With Sharif: Congress
    The Congress also wanted to know from the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government if issues of concern had been raised by him. 

    Centre Should Come Clean On 'Secret' Meet With Sharif: Congress

    Spurned Suitor Held For Raping Girl, Killing Her Cousin In Delhi

    Spurned Suitor Held For Raping Girl, Killing Her Cousin In Delhi
    Raj Kumar, a resident of Bihar, was arrested on Friday from a cement godown in Uttar Pradesh's Kanpur city where he fled after committing the crime and started working.

    Spurned Suitor Held For Raping Girl, Killing Her Cousin In Delhi

    Why Chandigarh's International Airport Remains A Domestic One

    Why Chandigarh's International Airport Remains A Domestic One
    The Chandigarh International Airport project, which was to connect the 'City Beautiful' to destinations like Dubai and other places like Bangkok, has not taken off and the city is unlikely to see any international flight in the near future.

    Why Chandigarh's International Airport Remains A Domestic One

    Delhi Trapped In Smog As World Urged To Act On Climate Change

    Delhi Trapped In Smog As World Urged To Act On Climate Change
    The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) defines an AQI between levels 0-50 as "good" quality of air, 51-100 as "satisfactory", 301-400 means "very poor" and 401-500 is "severe".

    Delhi Trapped In Smog As World Urged To Act On Climate Change

    Arvind Kejriwal Says Will Implement Hazare's Lokpal Suggestions

    Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday thanked Anna Hazare for supporting the Delhi Jan Lokpal Bill, saying he will "surely" implement the changes proposed by the social activist.

    Arvind Kejriwal Says Will Implement Hazare's Lokpal Suggestions

    Amid Sparks, Rajnath Says Intolerance Won't Be Allowed

    Rajnath Singh, who wound up a two-day debate in the Lok Sabha, reached out to the opposition and promised that mistakes if any would be rectified by the government.

    Amid Sparks, Rajnath Says Intolerance Won't Be Allowed