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Haryana elections: Cong lines up 40 star campaigners
Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 22
Struggling to reach a consensus on the candidature in at least 22 Assembly segments of Haryana, the Congress today firmed up its campaign strategy for the state and decided to release the party’s election manifesto in Chandigarh on October 1.

Leading the campaign in Haryana will be Congress president Sonia Gandhi and party vice-president Rahul Gandhi who will between them address 10 rallies preferably in each of the 10 Lok Sabha segments of the state.

The leaders have decided to go in for public rallies and public meetings as against road shows. The feeling is road shows don't allow direct contact with the voters. "We have proposed 10 rallies by Soniaji and Rahulji, one in each LS constituency," said top Congress sources planning the poll campaign.

The Congress has also drawn up a list of 40 star campaigners. Yet to be made official, the list features top Congress leaders, including former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, chief ministers of the neighbouring Congress-ruled states Virbhadra Singh of Himachal and Harish Rawat of Uttarakhand.

Congress’ Deputy Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha and former Punjab CM Capt Amarinder Singh and senior Congress general secretaries Janardan Dwivedi and Digvijay Singh also feature in the list of star campaigners. An interesting feature in Congress’ campaign in Haryana would be the likely presence of JD(U) and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leaders. RJD chief Lalu Yadav is set to campaign for Congress candidates. Lalu is relative of Capt Ajay Yadav to whose son Lalu’s daughter is married.

Ajay Yadav is chairing the Congress campaign committee for Haryana. Also being roped in by the Congress is JD(U)’s Sharad Yadav, whose wife is from Haryana and former Bihar CM and JD(U) strongman Nitish Kumar. Talks are going on with the RLD to invite their leaders for a campaign after Haryana CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda recently made a poll issue of RLD chief Ajit Singh being served an eviction notice by the BJP Government. Hooda wrote to the Urban Development Minister describing the move as discourteous.

“We will play up the issue of insult to Jat pride through eviction notice to Ajit Singh and are in talks with RLD leaders to invite them for a campaign,” Congress sources said. The Congress is likely to press into service three choppers during the campaign by CM Hooda, Haryana Congress president Ashok Tanwar and Rohtak MP Deepender Hooda.

The Congress campaign material will comprise of booklets and street shows on the achievements of the Haryana Congress government and the recently released AICC booklet titled, “100 days of BJP misrule”.

The Congress has ordered one lakh copies of the Hindi version of the booklet and 20,000 English copies, it is learnt reliably.

Ticket tussle

* Haryana CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda, state party chief Ashkok Tanwar and AICC general secretary Haryana were engaged in marathon meetings with Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on Monday over 22 tickets on which there are disagreements on candidatures.

* The list of candidates is unlikely to be announced before September 24

* As many as 68 seats have been cleared so far.