NEW DELHI: With less than six-months to go for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi has identified youngster, women and farmers as core constituencies for the party’s campaign that he will launch soon, party functionaries who were privy to strategy discussions said on Saturday.
Elated over the success of the recent campaign in the three central states of Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, party strategists have zeroed-in on the three voter segments after intensive consultation within the party and with several stakeholders over the past few weeks, said one of the sources cited above. The central themes of these deliberations will form the basis of the vision document that Rahul will unveil in phases over the coming weeks.
Rahul, they said, wanted to clarify his stand on each of these issues.
“The voter is very aware and aspirational. Hence, we have to suggest solutions to the problems that we have been flagging,” said a senior AICC functionary, adding that the party’s vision document would touch upon ways to revive a sagging agriculture sector by setting up need-based food processing hubs to reduce the gaps in the supply chain between the producer in the villages and the consumer in the cities and easing the availability of cheap loans with technological hand-holding by the government.
Similarly, Rahul, who has been slamming the centre for a lack of jobs, wanted to tell young voters how a bulk of the job creation would come from the revival of the small and medium industries. On what the party would do for the security of women and empowering them, the plan includes training through domain experts to enhance awareness of their legal rights and greater participation in the party as first steps. Besides, the three core areas, Rahul would list programmes for the other weaker sections like farm labourers, workers of the unorganised sector, the self-employed.