New Delhi: The Congress top brass including former chief Rahul Gandhi, incumbent president Mallikarjun Kharge and senior leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will lead the grand old party's Lok Sabha polls campaign.
"The top three leaders will lead the poll campaign which will start from the first week of April. The plan is to ensure that at least one of them addresses a rally in the seats being contested by the party in the phase 1 on April 19," a senior All India Congress Committee (AICC) functionary said.
Out of the 102 seats across 21 states going to polls in phase 1 on April 19, the Congress is contesting around 53. According to party insiders, the Congress campaign will focus on three major issues, social justice agenda, corruption in the government and misuse of central agencies to target the rivals.
Tamil Nadu is the only big state where polling for all the 39 Lok Sabha seats will be held on April 19. The other states where polling will be held on all the seats on April 19 are Uttarakhand in the north which has five seats and Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur in the north-east which have two seats each besides the lone seat in Sikkim.
"We are working out the campaign schedule for our top leaders. There would be Congress only as well as joint rallies with DMK on the 9 seats that we are contesting as well as the remaining seats. The focus is on the secular alliance against the divisive forces. Obviously, the party's five social justice plank, corruption in electoral bonds by BJP and misuse of central agencies to target the rivals will be the central theme of the grand old party," AICC secretary in-charge of Tamil Nadu Sirivella Prasad told ETV Bharat.
"The alliance is going to sweep the polls. Our pact with the DMK is a time tested one and there is cooperation among the partners on the ground. Tamil Nadu is very special for us as Rahul Gandhi's first Bharat Jodo Yatra had started from Kanyakumari on September 7, 2022 and its message travelled across the country. The second yatra started on February 14, 2024 from Manipur which suffered a communal strife but did not get the due attention from the Centre," he said.
In Arunachal Pradesh bordering China, the Congress has been targeting the Centre over border incursions by the Chinese troops over the past years and is also going to raise the issue during the national polls campaign.
"We have been raising the issue for so many years but no one listens," said Andhra Pradesh Congress working president and one of the contestants Bosiram Siram.
Besides Tamil Nadu, the major focus of the Congress managers would be on Rajasthan where 12 out of 25 parliamentary seats will have polls on April 19.
"We are contesting strongly on all the seats. The ground level campaigning by the candidates has already started and the visits of the top leaders are being worked out,” AICC secretary in-charge of Rajasthan Virendra Rathore told ETV Bharat.
Out of five seats in UT J&K, Udhampur in Jammu region will also have polling on April 19 where the Congress has fielded former MP Chaudhary Lal Singh.
