The Congress plan, which will roll out in Mumbai on 9 July, will reach out to the common man, and not the celebrities who BJP leaders are meeting.
New Delhi: The Congress is set to emulate the BJP’s Sampark for Samarthan campaign, but with a different thrust. The grand old party will reach the doorsteps of the common man, and not of celebrities such as Madhuri Dixit and Ratan Tata who BJP president Amit Shah met to seek support for his party for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
The proposed mass contact campaign will be launched in Mumbai on 9 July in the presence of new Congress general secretary in-charge of Maharashtra, Mallikarjun Kharge, and Mumbai Congress president Sanjay Nirupam.
“BJP’s Sampark for Samarthan is all about meeting Ratan Tata and Madhuri Dixit. Our programme is to meet the common man and understand their issues and expose the lies of the BJP before them,” said Nirupam.
The party has shortlisted 25 workers from each of the 227 wards of Mumbai who will be trained by senior leaders and experts from the Congress’ data analytics department. Every worker then will be asked to visit at least 40 households in a day — from Friday to Sunday.
“We are planning to visit more than 6 lakh houses over a weekend. Assuming that each house has an average of three voters, we would establish direct connect with more than 72 lakh voters in a month,” said Nirupam.
“There is a lot misinformation and wrong facts are being presented by the BJP. Our workers would offer the right information to the people touching upon local as well as national issues,” he claimed.
The Congress workers will also highlight what the party had done in the past what it plans to do in future, Nirupam added.
A meeting has been scheduled for Saturday to finalise the contours of the outreach campaign.
This is the first mass contact programme the Congress has planned keeping the 2019 elections in mind. In January this year, the party had launched a project — Shakti — to connect with grassroots workers.
Taking it forward, Congress president Rahul Gandhi had on 12 June interacted with booth-level party workers in Mumbai.
The new campaign may also be launched in Rahul’s constituency Amethi by 15 July. “The project Shakti has already started in Amethi and we are awaiting Rahul Gandhi’s visit to formally launch the programme,” said Yogendra Mishra, district Congress president of Amethi.
The idea will be later implemented in other parts of the country based on demands from the local Congress units, party sources said.