Congress president Sonia Gandhi and the party's vicepresident Rahul Gandhi will not step up their campaigning for the Maharashtra and Haryana Assembly elections to match the hectic schedule Prime Minister Narendra Modi has drawn up for himself.
According to Congress general secretary and communication incharge Ajay Maken, the campaign schedule of the party president and vicepresident this time was more or less similar to earlier elections. “We will fight the campaign as per our strength which is our local leadership.’’
“The Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP] has only one leader, Narendra Modi. We have a strong leadership in both States and others from neighbouring areas are also chipping in,’’ said Congress spokesman Shakeel Ahmed to a flurry of questions on why the motherson duo were not campaigning as much as Mr. Modi was.
“No other BJP leader in either State can draw a crowd of more than 500,” Mr. Ahmed said, reeling out the names of Congress veterans from both States with a mass base. Other Congress leaders pointed out that Mr. Modi had high stakes in these elections, particularly given the poor showing of the BJP in all the elections after the Lok Sabha polls.
With the Congress facing antiincumbency in both States – having ruled Haryana for 10 years and Maharashtra in alliance for 15 years – there is a view that the party was not using its top leadership in the campaign too much to insulate them from the blame for a bad result predicted for the Grand Old Party by poll pundits.
In Haryana, the Congress also plans to rope in the former Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, to draw the Sikh vote and cash in on the State Government’s decision to set up a separate Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee. But in the battle of perceptions, Congress leaders admit the party is at a disadvantage; not just because of the antiincumbency factor but also the largerthanlife image Mr. Modi has acquired for himself with considerable help from the media.
