Eyeing a comeback in assembly polls following a good show in recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge held meeting with the state incharges and members of the Screening Committee to discuss the poll preparations on Monday evening.
The meeting at the party headquarters was also attended by Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi where a detailed discussion took place on the strategy to go ahead in the assembly polls of Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir, where the dates have been announced and also for Maharashtra and Jharkhand, which will go to polls later this year.
The meeting at the party headquarters lasted for over three hours where the leaders discussed the party’s strategy and also emphasising on giving proper candidates.
During the meeting party chief, Kharge, who is also the Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha deliberated on giving tickets to candidates with clean image while Rahul Gandhi emphasised on giving tickets to leaders who have no background of corruption and have more chances of winning, the party sources claimed.
In the meeting it was also discussed.to fight the assembly polls unitedly and sidelining the personal differences which might hurt the party’s prospects.
The party leaders also asked the Screening Committee chairperson of Maharashtra Madhusudan Mistry to visit the stafe on August 27, 28 and 29 to hold discussion with the party leaders to finalise the candidates for the upcoming polls.
The Congress will be contesting the 288 member Maharashtra assembly elections in alliance with the Uddhav Thackeray led Shiv Sena (UBT) and Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (SP) as part of Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance that was forged in 2019 after the election results.
Meanwhile, the party also asked the leaders of Jammu and Kashmir to finalise the seat sharing talks with the Farooq Abdullah led NC and to hold the CEC meeting soon to dinalise candidates, as elections are taking place in the union territory for the first time in 10 years.
The Election Commission has announced polling dates for J&K in three phases — September 18, September 25 and October 1.