Cong campaign committee to hold maiden meeting on Thursday

Top Congress leaders will brainstorm tomorrow to finalise the strategy for an aggressive campaign by Rahul Gandhi for the next Lok Sabha polls.

New Delhi: Top Congress leaders will brainstorm on Thursday to finalise the strategy for an aggressive campaign by Rahul Gandhi for the next Lok Sabha polls.

As Sonia Gandhi chairs the maiden meeting of its high-level Campaign Committee on Thursday, party sources indicated that that meeting could be an occasion to decide the party`s campaign theme. Rahul Gandhi, who is the co-chairman of the Committee, is expected to go on a blitzkrieg campaign this Lok Sabha polls and there is a view that he should be addressing rally in at least 300 parliamentary constituencies. The meeting comes close on the heels of the informal gathering of the Congress Working Committee which was called by the party Vice-President to deliberate on the campaign theme and suggestions for poll manifesto. The 50-member Campaign Committee set up a few days back has Prime Minister Manmohan Singh along with several Union ministers like AK Antony, Sushilkumar Shinde, P Chidambaram, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Salman Khurshid,Kamal Nath, Anand Sharma and Jairam Ramesh. No Chief Minister, PCC chief or CLP leader, however, figures in the committee. On January 15, too, some senior leaders had met to dicuss the party`s campaign theme. A decision was taken in the meeting then to link the party`s election campaign with the issues that will be incorporated in the party manifesto through direct feedback from people. It was decided then that during the campaign, Congress will be telling people that their suggestions were taken note of by the party and included in the manifesto and if the party-headed government comes to power, all those promises will be implemented in earnest, party sources had said.