Cong ready for its first big show in Kangra

This will also be the first public rally after the appointment of PCC president Kaul Singh Thakur — who faces the biggest

challenge of bringing top party leaders,including Union Minister for Steel Virbhadra Singh and Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Vidya Stokes at one platform. His job,however,has been made easy by sitting MLA and former minister G S Bali who is the key host for the rally on his home turf.

“There are two clear objectives — one to bring Virbhadra Singh,Vidya Stokes and other veterans on one platform and the other to kick-start Congress’s journey back to power,” Bali told The Indian Express over phone. In 2003 when Congress returned to power,he recalled,party president Sonia Gandhi had started her roadshow from this soil.

AICC general secretary Mohsina Kidwai will be present at the rally. Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Anand Sharma has been invited,too, along with other key leaders,but he is unlikely to attend. There are chances of Chandresh Kumari,a former Congress minister and now Lok Sabha member from Rajasthan,attending the rally.

As the state Assembly’s Winter Session is slated to start in Dharamsala on December 6,most MLAs,too,are expected to join the rally. In fact,the venue has been chosen to gainfully utilise the opportunity and send a strong message to the party about its plans to put up a united front ahead of the panchayat polls.

Bali says the rally will make an effort to highlight the failure of BJP government on all fronts of development.

“Whenever the BJP came to power,it never fulfilled its tall promises made to the people. The government has done nothing for Kangra. No new industry has been set up and little effort has been made to create employment avenues.”

The Congress MLA also criticised the chief minister for terming the Winter Session of the Assembly as a “wasteful exercise”. “What is Rs 40 lakh these days? Doesn’t Dhumal know his ministers and MLAs have bought vehicles costing Rs 35 lakh to 45 lakh?”

The BJP,which will complete three years in power this month,has already been working hard to mobilise the party cadres at booth level. Women are being particularly targeted to capitalise on the state government’s innovative move to grant 50 per cent reservation to women in the panchayat polls — first time in the state’s history.