Congress targets farmers, Dalits, OBCs for LS revival

The Congress campaign for the Lok Sabha elections would be aimed at winning back key support base it lost years ago — farmers, Dalits and OBCs.

The party is also reaching out to farmers in a big way reminding them of the initiatives taken by the UPA government for the farm sector, including the loan waiver and contrasting it with the “neglect” by the Modi government.

In a bid to boost its outreach to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, the Congress has decided to lend its support to the massive rally planned in the capital against the alleged neglect of the NDA government on Dalit issues, particularly its “inaction” over the dilution of the Prevention of Atrocities Act.

A number of Dalit and Adivasi outfits had organised a rally in Warangal earlier this week that was addressed by a cross-section of leaders such as Mallikarjun Kharge, Meira Kumar, D Raja and Sudhakar Reddy among others.

“A similar rally will be held in Delhi in July,” a senior Congress leader associated with the Warangal event said here.

For the OBCs, Congress president Rahul Gandhi had assured adequate representation for the backward classes at every level in the party organisation as well as in the Lok Sabha and the state assemblies.

Recently, Rahul re-constituted the AICC's OBC Department by appointing Tamradhwaj Sahu as its new chairman. Sahu is in the process of setting up OBC Cells in the party's state units that would ensure representation to the community in the organisation.

AICC General Secretary Ashok Gehlot also said that Rahul has directed him to ensure that every committee of the party — whether in states or in districts or in blocks — must have an OBC representation.

For Scheduled Castes, the Congress has already begun to draw its strategies for winning maximum candidates in the 84 Lok Sabha seats reserved for the community.