# Kolkata

Adhir to meet party leaders on 17 Dec over poll plans, seat sharing

An idea of the number of constituencies from which the Congress wants to field its nominees is likely to emerge after the meeting between the PCC and All India Congress Committee (AICC) leaders.

TIRTHANKAR MITRA | Kolkata | December 9, 2020 11:58 am

Adhir to meet party leaders on 17 Dec over poll plans, seat sharing

State PCC chief, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury will meet some of the Congress national leaders on 17 December to finalise the party’s game plan for the next year’s state Assembly elections. The agenda of the meeting between Chowdhury and AICC leaders including Jitin Prasad includes working out the nitty gritty of the Congress-Left Front understanding for 2021 polls.

An idea of the number of constituencies from which the Congress wants to field its nominees is likely to emerge after the meeting between the PCC and All India Congress Committee (AICC) leaders.

Opinions have been voiced by both outfits on this issue at their last meeting. The decisions arrived at in the 17 December meeting will give the PCC a clear go-ahead on this crucial issue having its bearing on the inter-party poll understanding.

Chowdhury will walk into this crucial meeting at a point of time when new district and block-level committees are being formed. Changes have taken place in the district committees of Kolkata (north) and Dinajpur (north). Chowdhury is touring the state to raise the morale of the rank and file and have already addressed gatherings at Purulia and Raigunj.

The large crowds at Chowdhury’s rallies in the districts where Congress has been marginal force for decades will convince the AICC team of his organisational capacity. In its turn, it will help him to get the assent of the national leadership to strike a hard bargain in the seat sharing talks with the Front.

# Bengal

Rahul Gandhi may join campaign on 14 April

The Congress is missing the presence of party president Sonia Gandhi as well as Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra till date in the election campaign.

# Opinion

Congress v Congress

What is not, however, is the issues on which Congress dissidents have been speaking out. At the heart of the matter, to paraphrase Mr Sharma’s tweet which led to the brouhaha, is the party’s understanding of “Gandhian and Nehruvian secularism” and the electoral strategy which it has been following to attract the support of various communities to its banner at the hustings.

# Bengal

Farmers now know Mamata trick: Adhir

"Common people could not cast their votes in the state in the last panchayat elections. TMC cadres captured booths and used the state police in their favour in all the districts. If fresh Assembly elections are held, it is a fact that the TMC government will fall," Mr Chowdhury said.