Rahul Gandhi will kick off the Congress campaign for the upcoming assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir by addressing a rally at Dooru in Anantnag.
Other members of the Gandhi family including Sonia Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi and Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge will be joining the rally. They are part of the 40 top Congress leaders who will campaign for the party in the region.
In Dooru, the Congress has fielded senior J&K leader and former JKPCC chief G. A. Mir, a long-time Congress loyalist who won the assembly election from Dooru in 2008.
Mir is considered close to the Congress high command. The party is looking to build on its increased vote share from the recent Lok Sabha polls.
Senior Congress leader G.N. Monga told THE WEEK that Rahul will address two rallies on Wednesday. “He will address a rally at Dooru and then at Sangaldan,” he said. “He is then planning to visit America.”
The Congress has entered into a seat-sharing agreement for the 90-member assembly with the National Conference (NC), under which the NC will contest 51 seats, and Congress 32, with a ‘friendly’ contest on five seats. One seat each has been reserved for the CPI(M) and the Jammu-based National Panthers Party (NPP).
The Congress is contesting seven seats in Kashmir and 25 in the Jammu region. The party has announced the names of 16 candidates so far, including prominent figures such as Mir, Vikar Rasool Wani from Banihal, Peerzada Muhammad Syed from Kokernag, Sheikh Riaz from Doda, Surinder Singh Channi from Tral, Amanullah Mantoo from Devsar, Shaikh Zafarullah from Inderwal, Nadeem Sharief from Bhadarwah, and Pradeep Kumar Bhagat from Doda West.
At Sangaldan in Ramban, Rahul Gandhi will address a rally in support of Wani. Banihal is one of the five seats where the NC and Congress will have a friendly contest. Wani has won this seat in the last two assembly elections.
However, sources within the Congress have expressed concern over the slow pace of candidate announcements and campaign planning. “The BJP has taken a lead in announcing its candidates and starting the campaign in Jammu,” said a Congress leader. “There is not much time left for the elections. The delay is not good for us.”
The three-phase election in Jammu and Kashmir will begin on September 18, followed by the second phase on September 25 and the third on October 1.