Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is expected to return to India on June 18.Soon after his arrival, crucial decisions will be taken to kick-start a major overhaul in the party’s organisational structure. According to sources, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has already framed the groundwork and the Congress Working Committee may be announced by this month’s end. The buzz is that KC Venugopal, Shashi Tharoor, Digvijay Singh, Tariq Anwar, Randeep Surjewala, Salman Khurshid, Pramod Tiwari, Rajeev Shukla, Imran Pratapgarhi, Syed Naseer Hussain, Alka Lamba, Jitu Patwari, Deependra Singh Hooda, Pawan Khera and Amrinder Singh Brar are likely to have a place in the CWC. In addition, the CWC may see the addition of new members and reshuffles aimed at reinjection of fresh energy to fight for 2024. The existing CWC has 25 permanent invitees along with several special invitees and chiefs of frontal organisations such as Mahila Congress, Youth Congress, among others. Congress had also amended its constitution to provide 50 per cent reservation for Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), Other Backward Classes (OBCs), women, youngsters, and minorities in its working committee. The party had also raised the number of CWC members to 35 from the earlier 25.
WITH 80 LOK SABHA SEATS, PARTIES STEP UP ‘MISSION UP’ FOR 2024
In Uttar Pradesh, BJP and Samajwadi Party have geared up for their respective preparations for 2024 Lok Sabha elections. In a bid to galvanise the party cadres and to attain the politics of social justice, Samajwadi Party has instructed its leaders, especially the backward cell, to carry out the village-level meetings to sensitise people about the importance and need for caste census for inclusive growth. Moreover, SP has also devised an ambitious plan to have a constituency-specific poll strategy for the 2024 parliamentary elections in Uttar Pradesh, and as part of that, has started drawing information such as performance of MPs on each seat, particularly those won by rival parties. The SP wants its leaders to look up the specific expectations of the people, apart from general ones such as inflation, unemployment etc. Meanwhile, the BJP is anxious to repeat its 2019 performance for which UP is crucial. The saffron party has started organising surveys and outreach campaigns in the state. With BSP registering its worst UP assembly elections defeat in terms of seats, winning only one seat in the 403-member House and garnering just 12.8 % votes, the party is planning to focus more on Dalit and Muslim votes in UP. BSP Chief Mayawati is mainly bothered about her core Dalit vote since Congress began restructuring. The Congress’s national president, Mallikarjun Kharge, and its UP chief, Brijlal Khabri, are both Dalits. Congress has also set its focus on Dalit votes, who were traditional voters for the Congress before the formation of the BSP.
NITISH THINKS LOK SABHA 2024 ELECTIONS CAN BE HELD AHEAD OF SCHEDULE
In an attempt to bring the opposition parties on board against the incumbent BJP in the next year general elections, a conclave of like-minded political parties will be held on June 23 in Patna, likely to be presided by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. Over 20 political parties will attend the meeting. During a programme of the rural works department in which he laid the foundation stone and inaugurated 5,061 projects worth Rs6,680.67crore via video conferencing, Nitish Kumar has hinted towards a possible preponing of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Kumar asked the officials to complete the work before the polls. Grand Alliance (GA) leaders in Bihar asserted that the early Lok Sabha election issue can be the agenda during the Opposition unity meet on June 23. Almost all leaders barring Odisha chief minister Biju Patnaik and his Telangana counterpart K Chandrashekhar Rao would be attending the meeting.
SHINDE’S FRONT-PAGE ANTICS IRKS FADNAVIS, BJP TOP BOSSES IN DELHI
After a front-page advertisement published in Maharashtra newspapers with the tagline: “Modi for India, Shinde for Maharashtra,” the central leadership of the BJP intervened and carried out a strict warning to Eknath Shinde, the current Chief Minister of Maharashtra, sources said. What left the BJP leadership annoyed was the fact that the advertisement was put out by the Shinde-headed Maharashtra government and had left out deputy chief minister Fadnavis, the face of the saffron party in the state. The advertisement showcased images of just Modi and Shinde and it has a reference to a survey done and indicated that the popularity rating of the chief minister was more than that of his deputy. The survey claimed that 26.1 per cent of the people of Maharashtra wanted Shinde as chief minister while 23.2 per cent wished to see Fadnavis as the next chief minister. The following day, another advertisement appeared in newspapers bearing pictures of Shinde and Fadnavis waving. It indicated that the Sena-BJP alliance was preferred by 46.4 per cent of the people in comparison to the Opposition’s 34.6 per cent. While BJP leaders in Delhi were worried about the development as it showed that ties between the leaders of Maharashtra — Fadnavis and Shinde were not amicable They are anxious that it could harm the party in the Lok Sabha polls next year, followed by the Assembly elections.
CONGRESS PROMISES FIVE GUARANTEES TO POLL-BOUND MADHYA PRADESH
Much on the lines of the Karnataka success story, in Madhya Pradesh too, the Congress has rolled out five guarantees in the BJP-ruled central Indian state where the Assembly elections are slated to take place later this year. AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi along with party leader Kamal Nath offered a Narmada Pooja at Gwarighat in Jabalpur, before addressing a mammoth rally. Priyanka made the announcement that if the party came to power in the state, her promise included facilities such as every woman would avail a monthly allowance of Rs 1,500. She also promised 100 units of free electricity to every household, besides an additional 200 units of power at half the rate. LPG cylinders would be given for Rs 500 if the Congress came to power. Priyanka also guaranteed that the party would waive farmers’ loans and re-introduce the old pension scheme for government employees. Meanwhile, 400-car cavalcade from Madhya Pradesh’s Shivpuri to Bhopal – a distance of about 300 km — marked the return of a BJP leader to the Congress, which he left during the 2020 rebellion led by Jyotiraditya Scindia. Baijnath Singh, who holds political clout in Shivpuri, had followed Mr Scindia into the BJP during the 2020 Madhya Pradesh Congress rebellion that toppled the Kamal Nath government and brought the BJP back to power. Mr Scindia, who led the rebellion, is now Union Civil Aviation minister. Baijnath, it is evidently had been lobbying hard for a BJP ticket in the run-up to the Assembly polls. But with no ray of hope of getting one, he decided to rejoin the Congress. (IPA Service)
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