New Delhi: The Congress will take the assistance of “like-minded”, left-leaning civil society organisations in at the least 100 “targeted constituencies” within the run-up to Lok Sabha elections, ThePrint has learnt.
The celebration additionally plans to get its employees educated by NGOs and activists main varied social actions.
Occasion Basic Secretary Okay.C. Venugopal wrote to all state models final month, directing office-bearers to make sure this initiative doesn’t face any hurdles. ThePrint has seen a duplicate of the 15 January letter.
The Bharat Jodo Abhiyan (BJA) — an umbrella physique of civil society teams — which counts political activist Yogendra Yadav as its convenor, would be the nodal platform to work intently with the Congress on this.
Many different distinguished civil society faces, comparable to Aruna Roy, Prashant Bhushan, Tushar Gandhi, Syeda Hameed and Harsh Mander — a few of whom held official positions throughout the tenure of the Congress-led UPA I and II governments between 2004 and 2014 — are anticipated to execute the plan as “mentors”.
In his letter, Venugopal stated that the BJA, fashioned on 6 February final 12 months, collaborated with the Congress within the Rahul Gandhi-led ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ final 12 months in addition to the continuing ‘Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra’ to “spread core pluralistic and fraternal values of Indian society and constitutional values of social, economic and political justice”.
“Bharat Jodo Abhiyan is active in around 100 targeted constituencies in 15 states of the country and is keen on supporting the Congress party and other INDIA allies in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. I request you to collaborate with the state teams of the BJA in your respective states… BJA is also keen on taking up rapid training to equip Congress workers on the ground to door-to-door campaigning, wherever they can empanel resource persons immediately, since they have a module ready for the same,” Venugopal wrote.
Within the communique, the Congress chief, who is taken into account the eyes and ears of the Gandhis within the celebration, stated the state models ought to “respond positively to any BJA team members approaching you”, designate a degree particular person within the state Congress unit to be the “interface between BJA and the party”.
They need to additionally write to all district presidents of the Congress the place the BJA focused constituencies fall “to collaborate at the ground level, he added.
Congress sources said most of the targeted constituencies fell along the road taken by Rahul Gandhi during the cross-country foot march ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ between September 2022 to January 2023 and its ongoing sequel — from Manipur to Mumbai on a customised bus.
Yogendra Yadav, however, told ThePrint that the constituencies were picked on a different metric. “These are constituencies which can go either way. According to our analyses, in these seats, the BJP can be defeated or prevented from winning with some additional effort.”
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
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