New Delhi: The Congress on Saturday announced as many as 66 AICC observers for the May 10 assembly polls in order to micro-manage the crucial contest.
“These AICC observers are senior leaders, MLAs, MPs, and former ministers who bring in their poll fighting experience to the ground. Besides, they help in better coordination and work in a focussed way in the assembly seats assigned to them,” AICC secretary in charge of Karnataka Abhishek Dutt told ETV Bharat. “The practice of appointing AICC observers in poll-bound states is an old one in the party,” he said.
Out of the 66 AICC observers, five senior leaders including ex-PCC chief N Raghuveera Reddy, ex-Mumbai unit chief Sanjay Nirupam, MP Benny Behanan, MP Karti Chidambaram and MP Jothimani have been deployed for capital Bengaluru City alone, which has roughly 25 assembly seats. This means one observer gets five seats to handle.
The remaining 61 observers would be assigned their assembly seats soon, said party insiders. There are a total of 224 seats in the Karnataka Assembly. Party insiders said there are many jobs to be done during the campaign like coordinating with the central leadership, fire-fighting and filing complaints with the Election Commission at the assembly seat level and the AICC observers come in handy there as the state unit in charge cannot be present everywhere.
According to senior Karnataka leader Prakash Rathod, the state unit DK Shiv Kumar and CLP leader K Siddaramaiah have completed their mass outreach program called “Praja Dhwani” in around 150 seats over the past month and are now supervising things at macro level ahead of the May 10 polls. The announcement about AICC observers came hours before the party announced its third list of candidates containing 43 names. So far, the party has named 207/224 candidates and they are busy campaigning in their respective areas. The remaining seats could be announced any day, said party sources.
According to senior leader Suraj Hegde, the party is taking assurances of free power, unemployment allowance, and women’s allowance to the voters while telling them about the failures of the Bommai government. “We have a fair chance of winning, we are putting all our resources into the polls. Our leader Rahul Gandhi’s visit to Kolar on Sunday will give a further boost to the party campaign,” said Hedge.
“I am personally busy entirely with the Kolar rally. This kind of focus is needed in a crucial election,” said Abhishek Dutt. Though it was being speculated that Rahul may review the coming polls with senior leaders, Hegde said such a session may be skipped as the senior leaders were busy with poll management at the local level and may not be able to spend time in extended meetings.
“Of course, they would be there for Rahulji’s rally. Our party president Mallikarjun Kharge is also coming for the rally and so will all the senior state leaders,” he said. According to Hegde, the Congress was presenting a united picture before the voters as compared to the BJP which was suffering from infighting over allotment of tickets.
Also read: Karnataka elections 2023: Denied ticket by BJP, Laxman Savadi joins Congress
