Unperturbed by the high-voltage campaign by BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC), which has high stakes to perform well in the next Lok Sabha elections, has decided to re-launch the ‘Congress Nadige Janara Balige.’
Speaking to Express, KPCC president G Parameshwara said he believed that the programme had helped in boosting the morale of party workers before the May 5 Assembly elections, ensuring that the party won handsomely and came back to power after a nine-year hiatus. He said the programme was conceived by the previous party in-charge for Karnataka, Madhusudan Mistry, and had helped to regroup the party workers as well as attract new members into the party fold.
Describing the programme as unique, he said it had yielded rich dividends in Karnataka. He said the programme has been taken to Uttar Pradesh by Mistry, where the party was out of power for nearly two decades. The KPCC president said: “In the run-up to the next general elections, we are going to re-launch the programme shortly.”
He said almost all senior Congress leaders in the state, including Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, four Union Ministers from the state, AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh and AICC secretaries will take part in the mass contact programme and hear the views of the rank and file of the party to strengthen the organisation.
“The programme had not only helped to know the pulse of the people at the grassroots level, but also to find suitable and better candidates to fight the Assembly elections,” Parameshwara said.
He said AICC vice-president Rahul Gandhi had instructed all state party units on the need to establish continuous cotact with party workers at the grassroots level. Parameshwara said: “Henceforth, I have decided to attend the DCC executive meetings and take active part in its proceedings.”
“As per the directions of Rahulji, we have also decided to convene the KPCC executive meetings every month and discuss the strengths as well as weaknesses of the party and the government. We will take corrective measures based on the interactions,” he said.
Referring to the controversial issue of setting up of fast track courts to assess the bona fide of the arrests made by the police on those belonging to the minority communities, the KPCC president said: “It was part of our poll manifesto and we are committed to implement it.”