Congress president Rahul Gandhi will kick-start the party’s Lok Sabha poll campaign from north Karnataka on March 9. He will address a public meeting in Haveri and then tour other States.
The BJP, too, had launched its party campaign from north Karnataka — in Hubballi on February 10. Twelve of the 28 Lok Sabha seats in the State are from this region. Of these, in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress won four (Ballari, Kalaburagi, Raichur, and Chikkodi).
Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president Dinesh Gundu Rao on Friday convened a meeting of the party’s office-bearers to ensure the success of Mr. Gandhi’s rally, chalk out a poll strategy, and discuss deployment of manpower for campaign work. It was decided to deploy three KPCC secretaries for each constituency to oversee the campaign, Mr. Rao said.
Meanwhile, the District Congress Committees (DCCs) have been told to hold district-level party rallies in each district in the coming days to galvanise party workers. The Raichur DCC will hold its meeting on Saturday.
On the lines of the ‘Vistarak’ booth-level campaign of the BJP, Mr. Rao told Congress office-bearers to focus on strengthening the booth-level committees to ensure co-ordination among party supporters. KPCC vice-president B.L. Shankar, MLC Prakash Rathod and presidents of all district Congress units attended the meeting.
Seat-sharing
The Congress and the Janata Dal (S) are likely to reach a pact on sharing seats for the Lok Sabha elections before the launch of the former’s poll campaign on March 9.
Since the Congress had won more seats in the region in the Assembly elections, the party is expected to get a majority of the seats in north Karnataka. The region is expected to witness a straight fight between the Congress and the BJP.
K.C. Venugopal, AICC general secretary in charge of Karnataka, who arrived in the city on Thursday for talks on seat-sharing, had to leave early on Friday on account of another pressing assignment. KPCC president Dinesh Gundu Rao had met JD(S) supremo H.D. Deve Gowda on Thursday while on Friday, Water Resources Minister D.K. Shivakumar met the former Prime Minister.
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