The meeting, which went on for more than two hours, was held in the party's war room at Gurudwara Rakabganj Road office on Saturday in preparation of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
In a meeting with the party's state presidents and CLP leaders, Congress president Rahul Gandhi has asked them to come up with five key state-specific demands that the Centre can implement if the Congress comes to power. The meeting, which went on for more than two hours, was held in the party's war room at Gurudwara Rakabganj Road office on Saturday in preparation of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Gandhi asked the leaders to ensue poll preparations on a "war footing".
The demands, sources said, are to be given to the party high command in writing as soon as possible. Gandhi spoke individually to each leader, who apprised him of the situation in respective states.
Gandhi has also asked the leaders to hold intensive deliberations on candidate selections in their respective states and ensure that only 2-3 winnable names are sent to the office of the party's central election committee.
Senior leaders present in the meeting reiterated what was told to party functionaries in a meeting of the core committee on January 2, when state party leaders were asked to avoid adopting "one-line resolutions" which authorise the high command on decisions on appointments of legislative party chiefs.
Party's general secretary organisation KC Venugopal, party treasurer Ahmed Patel, Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot, Pudducherry CM V Narayanasamy, former Karnataka CM and CLP leader Siddaramaiah, Rajasthan deputy CM Sachin Pilot, former Delhi CM and state president Sheila Dikshit, Telangana state president Uttam Kumar Reddy, Punjab state president Sunil Jakhar, were present in the meeting among others.
In a release, Venugopal said that the "anti-farmer, anti-youth, anti-women" policies of the Modi government need to be publicised as well as "pro-people" policies of the Congress government, including the Minimum Income Guarantee.
Apart from the meeting with state leaders, Gandhi also held separate meetings with manifesto committee chief P Chidambaram, publicity committee head Anand Sharma, and social media committee chief Divya Spandana. The leaders deliberated on the urgency of selecting an ad agency for the publicity campaign for 2019 elections for non-social media campaigns, especially in the face of the BJP's campaign blitzkrieg that is about to follow.
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