Cong not to outsource Gujarat poll campaign

The Congress has decided not to employ any outside agency to manage its poll campaign in Gujarat, where Assembly elections are scheduled to be held in December, it is reliably learnt.

The decision was reached in a meeting attended by Ahmed Patel, political secretary to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, and Ashok Gehlot, general secretary in charge of Gujarat, and others in the Congress war room.

The meeting was not attended by Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, who was in Karnataka for organisational reasons. The meeting was also attended by Bharat Singh Solanki, who heads party's Gujarat unit.

Sources said Rahul Gandhi will meet the Congress leaders at 3.30 pm on Thursday to put a final stamp on the decision.

Sources in the Congress also said Bharat Solanki would steer the campaign, but that party would project a collective leadership.

Sources told DNA that the Wednesday's meeting lasted for more than eight hours and it was decided that party would take major calls collectively and in case survey needs to be conducted that would outsourced. "We decided that campaign would be chalked out by the party not by an outside agency," Solanki told DNA.

In case of Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, Prashant Kishore was made in-charge of the campaign, which caused a major heartburn to the party leaders. He was inducted after a stupendous win by Nitish Kumar in Bihar, who now is the NDA camp.

The Congress, it seems, doesn't want to repeat UP, where it has proved detrimental to the party.