Congress To Meet Bengal Leaders On Jan 17 To Finalise Poll Strategy

Congress's top brass will hold a meeting with senior party leaders from West Bengal on January 17 here to discuss poll preparedness and strategy for the forthcoming assembly elections, sources said.

According to them, the party's West Bengal screening committee will convene in Kolkata on January 18.

On January 18, there will be more meetings in Kolkata with members of the state's political action committee, election committee, and senior party observers.

According to sources, the party's poll approach will probably be discussed and decided upon at the meeting on January 17. Additionally, the Congress must choose which coalitions to form for the elections.

The Congress has designated Sudip Roy Burman, Shakeel Ahmad Khan, and Prakash Joshi as senior observers for the West Bengal Assembly election.

AICC general secretary in charge of West Bengal, Ghulam Ahmad Mir, West Bengal Congress Committee chief, Subhankar Sarkar, AICC general secretary in charge of organisation K C Venugopal, and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge are anticipated to attend the meeting on January 17.

The sessions take place in the midst of a controversy surrounding West Bengal's current Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, which has drawn harsh criticism from parties like the Congress and the TMC.

The TMC and the BJP have also traded barbs over the Enforcement Directorate (ED) carrying out raids at the office of political consultancy firm I-PAC and the residence of its chief in connection with a coal smuggling case.

TMC leaders have maintained that I-PAC, which provides political consultancy services to the party and manages its IT and media operations, was being targeted to gain access to sensitive internal documents.

Polls in West Bengal, Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry would be held in the next few months as the tenures of their respective assemblies are due to end in May and June.