Sounding the poll bugle, Congress president Malikarjun Kharge is set to start a whirlwind tour of five poll-bound States, beginning with Chhattisgarh, on August 13.
The meeting in Chhattisgarh will be organised at Janjgir-Champa, a district dominated by the Scheduled Castes. Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) founder Kanshiram fought his first Lok Sabha election from here.
In the last Assembly election, despite a spectacular performance in the State, the Congress performed poorly in Bilaspur division under which Janjgir-Champa falls, losing 12 of the 24 seats. Mr. Kharge will address a State government-sponsored meeting under the series Bharose Ka Sammelan.
Mr. Kharge will address the next meeting on August 18 in Zahirabad, Telangana. The Congress lost the Zahirabad Lok Sabha seat by a little over 5,000 votes to the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) in 2019. Currently, the BRS holds all seven Assembly segments that come under this Lok Sabha constituency. Two of these seats, including the Zahirabad Assembly seat, are reserved for the Scheduled Castes.
The Congress, sources said, is planning to replicate the Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh model of restricting the election to local issues and promises would be centred around the problems and situation in the State. “In Telangana, the government’s Dharini portal which digitised all land records is turning out to be a huge problem. One of our key election promises would be to scrap the Dharini project,” a senior Congress leader said.
On August 22, he will be in Sagar, Madhya Pradesh. The Congress has been holding a series of public meetings at the divisional headquarters. Party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra addressed two rounds of public meetings in Jabalpur and Gwalior, and the third will now be addressed by Mr. Kharge in Sagar .
Explaining the political significance of the division, Rajya Sabha member from Madhya Pradesh Vivek Tankha said, “Three of the senior-most Ministers of the BJP cabinet — Govind Rajput, Gopal Bhargava and Bhupinder Singh — come from Sagar. This meeting, therefore, is aimed at challenging the BJP citadel.” The area also has a significant Other Backward Classes and SC population.
Mr. Kharge will head to Rajasthan on August 2. Sources said the venue is yet to be decided.
His office is also coordinating with Mizoram, where due to rain, a source said, the date of the meeting could not be fixed.
