PTI, NEW DELHI: Congress president Rahul Gandhi today approved a 70-member campaign committee headed by Karnataka Power Minister D K Shivakumar for the coming assembly polls in the southern state, Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president G Parmeshwara said. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah will also be a member of the committee which includes all top Congress leaders of the state.
Leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha, M Mallikarjun Kharge is also a member of the committee. The committee will have all former union ministers from the state, former PCC presidents, all chiefs of the party’s frontal organisations, all AICC office-bearers and all members of both Houses of Parliament as members. The tenure of the Karnataka Assembly ends in May 2018 and the state is expected to go to polls around April.
Congress president Rahul Gandhi has asked party leaders from poll-bound Karnataka to prepare “people’s manifesto” and undertake mass outreach programmes, taking a cue from similar exercise during the party’s recent electoral outing in Gujarat. Karnataka goes to polls this year. “The exercise has already been undertaken by a team headed by senior Congress leader Veerappa Moily and it is expected to come out with an ‘all-encompassing manifesto’ much ahead of polling in the state,” a senior party leader said.
“The party president has asked leaders to come out with a manifesto that truly reflects the expectations of the people of Karnataka. The Congress will seek feedback from all stakeholders,” AICC secretary in-charge for Karnataka, Madhu Goud Yaskhi, told PTI.
In a similar exercise, telecom entrepreneur Sam Pitroda had interacted with residents of five cities of Gujarat, namely Vadodara, Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Jamnagar and Surat, ahead of the two-phased assembly elections there last year. The manifesto prepared thus focused on education, health, small and medium enterprises, employment generation and environment protection. “That ‘good’ practice helped us know what people wanted. It is better than leaders sitting in their offices and drafting manifestoes,” another party leader said.
He said in Karnataka, the party unit will focus on socio-economic aspects relating to development.
