Cong's state in-charge Venugopal may visit city

Newly appointed AICC General Secretary K C Venugopal is expected to arrive in Bengaluru on Tuesday. Venugopal was handed over the charge of party affairs in Karnataka on Saturday.

“My job is to get everyone along and win the Assembly elections next year,” Venugopal told DH.
Venugopal is a Lok Sabha member from Alappuzha Parliamentary seat in Kerala. He sits next to Rahul Gandhi in the Lower House and is also the deputy whip of the party.

He said he would first meet party leaders in Bengaluru and get himself acquainted with the issues in the state.

Besides Venugopal, Congress president Sonia Gandhi also appointed four AICC secretaries — former Telangana MP Madhu Yaskhi Goud, former Tamil Nadu MP Manickam Tagore, former Kerala MLA P C Vishnunadh and former Andhra Pradesh minister Sake Sailajanath — to supervise election preparations in Karnataka.

Venugopal and the four AICC secretaries are expected to meet Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and discuss issues related to the state.

The immediate tasks before Venugopal would be to address the issues of factionalism, nomination of four members to fill the vacancy in Legislative Council, organisational restructuring, and finalising the new KPCC chief.

Venugopal will be pitted against an aggressive BJP that has already set a target of winning 150 seats in the House of 224 with B S Yeddyurappa as its chief ministerial candidate.