Recently, senior Congress leaders, who had important portfolios during the UPA government like Kumari Shailja, Anand Sharma, Sachin Pilot, former Haryana CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam, Punjab finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal and Ghulam Nabi Azad toured the region. However, Congress did not organize public meetings for these leaders.
In Surat, senior Congress leaders were taken directly on door-to-door campaigning and to address small group meetings consisting of 50-100 people. Most of the leaders ensured to meet the textile traders' community to appease them over the Goods and Service Tax issues.
City Congress chief Hasmukh Desai told TOI, "Our strategy makers have seen more positive results at other places in holding small group meetings rather than public meetings. The criteria is to meet and discuss with those people who are unable to be seen in the public and hardly attend any public meetings like majority of the textile traders, textile dyeing mill owners and other stakeholders in the society."
Congress think tank feels that such individual one-to-one contacts with the voters forms better real bond with the public, which was by and large missing in the state like Gujarat, where the party is in the opposition since last 22 years.
"To convert votes, we need to go to each individual and let them understand the way Congress works. We feel by doing this we would not only catch those voters sitting on the fence, but also a section which is highly undecided till the last moment and invariably votes for ruling BJP because of no option," a senior Congress leader said.
On December 2, former prime minister Manmohan Singh will visit the Diamond City. However, city Congress unit has not set up any public meeting. Singh is supposed to meet a large section of textile traders on the issue of GST and a large section of intelligentsia on the issue of demonetisation and its ill-effects.
Some party members also feel that to understand the nitty-gritties of finance, one does not need a public meeting, but a dinner with 500 top industrialists of the city would do the trick.
Working president of Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee Dr Tushar Chaudhary said, "It is not that we are relying only on such group meeting type of campaigns. Our list of 50 star campaigners is ready and in the coming days once every candidate's preliminary door-to-door rounds in their constituencies are over, a series of public meetings would be held in the region."
by via Surat News, Latest Surat News Headlines & Live Updates - Times of India
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