New Delhi: In a first-of-its-kind campaign, as many as 119 senior Congress leaders from across the country conducted a door-to-door voter connect drive in all the 119 assembly constituencies of poll-bound Telangana on Monday. The deployment of senior leaders, including sitting and former chief ministers and Congress Working Committee members, came a day after the party’s massive rally near Hyderabad on Sunday in which former party chief Sonia Gandhi announced the six guarantees for the voters.

According to party strategists, the special door-to-door drive was planned to take off the momentum generated at Sunday’s massive rally and take Sonia Gandhi’s six promises to the voters on the ground. The six promises have been carefully crafted keeping in mind the different sections of society like women, youth, SC/ST and the farmers and the model is a replica of the similar assurances, which swung the recent Karnataka assembly polls in favour of the grand old party.

The special campaigners in Telangana included former union minister Salman Khurshid in Warangal West, ex-Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan in Rajendra Nagar, ex-Rajasthan deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot in Nampally, national media head Pawan Khera in Vikarabad, AICC social media head Supriya Shirnate in Jangaon, former Gujarat unit chief Jagdish Thakor in Mulugu, AICC in-charge Jharkhand Avinash Pande in Khammam, CWC member Alka Lamba in Ramagundam, CWC member Deepa Das Munshi in Maheshwaram, former Goa unit chief Girish Chodankar in Station Ghanpur, former Bihar unit chief MM Jha in Armur, former Tripura unit chief Sudip Roy Burman in Mancherial, Punjab unit chief Amarinder Raja Brar in Siddipet, Gujarat CLP leader Amit Chavda in Patancheru, KC George in Secunderabad, among others.

Also read: Sonia Gandhi announces six guarantees ahead of Telangana Assembly polls

During the door-to-door campaign, the senior leaders distributed leaflets mentioning the six guarantees to the voters and sought their support for the party nominees. They also spent on Sunday night in the Assembly constituencies to win over the trust of the locals. “I have not seen a door-to-door campaign like this in a very long time where senior leaders from across the country hit the streets in a state poll. It actually marked the launch of our campaign on the ground a day after the rally. The workers were energised and felt special as the top leaders from different parts of the country visited the assembly constituencies and interacted with the local functionaries. The move also showed the voters how serious Congress is about the forthcoming elections. Fortunately, the campaign started on an auspicious day of Ganesh Chaturthi,” AICC secretary in charge of Telangana Rohit Chaudhary told ETV Bharat.

“The September 17 rally, too, was very successful. We had made arrangements for around 10 lakh people, but the crowd exceeded that number. All the senior leaders, including the CWC members, travelled to the venue in buses and all they could see around the place was a sea of humanity,” he said. The special campaigners also interacted with the local influencers, including social media influencers, and conducted marches to the statues of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr BR Ambedkar in the evening to mobilise the locals.

“The idea behind sending the special campaigners was to explain to the voters that if the Congress comes to power, the six promises will be implemented in Telangana within 100 days as it happened in neighbouring Karnataka,” said state campaign committee chief Madhu Goud Yashki.