By ARUN PRATAP SINGH
DEHRADUN, 10 Feb: All India Congress Committee (AICC) General Secretary and leader in charge of the party affairs in Uttarakhand Kumari Selja who arrived in Dehradun on Saturday, held meetings with senior Congress party leaders, MLAs, former ministers and former MLAs in respect of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in detail.
Selja is stated to have claimed that Congress Party is ready to contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections with full strength and work is being done to strengthen the party organisation up to the booth level. She asked the Congress leaders and workers to work hard in making the people aware of the failures of the BJP government at the Centre and in the state by reaching out every household in the state. She claimed that if the Congress workers are able to achieve this, the Congress Party will definitely get the expected success in the Lok Sabha and the upcoming municipal elections. She also claimed that the BJP wants to do politics only in the name of caste and religion which hinders the development of any state and country. She also called upon all the Congress party workers to work on preparing the Congress organisation for the Lok Sabha elections at the booth level. She directed the party leaders to expose the lies and hypocrisy of the BJP before the public by going to every village and speaking to the villagers.
Kumari Selja also discussed with the leaders the ‘Donate for Nation’ and ‘Donate for Justice campaign’ fund collection campaigns being run by the Congress Party and also discussed in detail the progress made so far in the state of Uttarakhand under these campaigns and she called upon leaders to give a fresh impetus to the campaign.
Earlier, the state in-charge was warmly welcomed by the Congress workers under the leadership of State Congress President Karan Mahara on arrival at Dehradun and the Congress Bhawan. In the meeting, State Congress President Karan Mahara and Leader of Opposition Yashpal Arya, informed her about the activities being run by the party up to the booth level and the progress of ‘Donate for Nation’ and ‘Donate for Justice’ campaigns, and they asserted that the Congress Party is fully prepared and all set for the Lok Sabha elections in the state. Along with formation of Mandals with booth committees, appointments to BLA have also been made.
Regarding the list of candidates for the Lok Sabha elections, Selja clarified that the Central Election Committee will take final decision regarding the candidates after the Central Screening Committee of the Congress Party. After taking all these views into consideration and conducting a survey, the names will be discussed in the Central Election Committee meeting. She also targeted BJP’s slogan of crossing 400 seats this time and said that in the last elections, BJP was talking about crossing 75 seats in Haryana, but was limited to 40 seats in the last assembly elections.
In the meeting, former state president Pritam Singh, Ganesh Godiyal, Deputy Leader of Opposition Bhuvan Kapadi, MLAs Rajendra Singh Bhandari, Vikram Singh Negi, Mamta Rakesh, Furkan Ahmed, Adesh Chauhan, Virendra Jati, Ravi Bahadur, Gopal Singh Rana, Sumit Hridayesh, Manoj Tiwari, Harish Dhami, and former ministers Govind Singh Kunjwal, Heera Singh Bisht, Minister Prasad Naithani, Dr Harak Singh Rawat, Ramyash Singh, Pradeep Tamta, Mahendra Singh Pal, Ranjit Singh Rawat, State Vice President Organisation Mathuradatt Joshi, were among those present.
