THIRUVANANTHAPURAM : The Congress state leadership has decided to combine ‘Samaragni’ yatras planned by party state president K Sudhakaran and Leader of Opposition V D Satheesan, into election campaign committee meetings.
This comes after the Congress state leadership realised that time is running out as the Lok Sabha elections are approaching fast. The yatra is scheduled to be held from February 9 to 27. Initially, the party had decided that the two leaders would travel across the 140 Assembly constituencies. But with the budget session of the Assembly scheduled to start later this month, the leadership decided to extend the yatra. Since Satheesan has to execute his crucial role as the Leader of Opposition, he will be hard-pressed to stay away from the state capital. A top party leader told TNIE that the Election Commission of India had announced elections on March 10 last time.
“This time Lok Sabha polls are scheduled to be announced anytime after February. Hence the party decided that the ‘Samaragni’ yatra should be merged with the election campaigning. Instead of the duo touring the 140 Assembly constituencies, they would instead attend a massive public meeting covering a few constituencies. We have also decided to convert the welcome committees in all constituencies into UDF election committees,” said a top Congress leader.
Meanwhile, Satheesan kicked off his district-level meeting in Kollam on Monday which saw him liaising with mandalam presidents, office-bearers as well as leaders of feeder organisations. On a parallel basis, the Vicharana Sadas against the wrong policies of the LDF government is currently in its last phase. The outcome of the Vicharana Sadas will be taken up at the UDF meeting scheduled to take place in T’Puram on Wednesday.