Congress appoints 37 observers for Gujarat Assembly polls

New Delhi, July 7 (IANS) Ahead of the Gujarat Assembly elections, the Congress has appointed segment-wise observers in all the 26 parliamentary constituencies.

A total of 37 leaders, including MLAs from various states, have been drafted to the party work. The leaders are mostly from Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.

The Congress has held meetings in Delhi to prepare for the polls and both the state and national leaders are deliberating on this.

The Central Congress leadership has asked its Gujarat unit to refrain from making personal attacks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and to raise people's issues and target the BJP policies in the run-up to the Assembly polls, slated for later this year, sources said.

On Monday, the Congress task force held a marathon meeting of five hours wherein the Gujarat leaders were asked to prepare unitedly for the Assembly polls to dethrone the BJP, which is ruling the state for the past 27 years.

As part of the strategy, the party will highlight the state government's failure particularly during the Covid pandemic.

Notably, the Congress has witnessed some high profile exits in recent past besides suffering a blow in local body elections. Hardik Patel, who spearheaded the Patidar protest, has also changed his loyalty and joined the BJP.

Congress leaders Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, K.C. Venugopal, Randeep Surjewala, Ajay Maken, former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and Congress poll strategist Sunil Kanugolu were present in the meeting of the task force.