Will pull out all stops to ensure Congress’ victory, says Ghulam Nabi Azad

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 5

Members of the Congress’ G 23 group have decided to campaign in all forthcoming state elections and work for the party’s victory.

Congress veteran Ghulam Nabi Azad, who leads the group of 23 leaders that have been seeking internal organisations overhaul, today said for the next two months the Congress victory in upcoming elections was a priority and everything else was secondary.

“The Congress victory in upcoming state elections will be our priority for the next two months. I and my colleagues will campaign in all upcoming state polls. We will go wherever the party asks us to go and also wherever individual candidates invite us,” Azad said today, days after he triggered a row by praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi for being a “rooted man”.

Asked whether the members of the G 23 will campaign even if the party doesn’t ask them to, Azad said, “I’ve seen the party working for years and we’ve always campaigned for any candidate who wants us to canvass for him. So, we will campaign in upcoming polls.” Azad said the group which wrote a letter to the Congress chief last August would start campaigning in Assam, Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry.

AIADMK releases 1st list of candidates

• The ruling AIADMK on Friday released the first list of six candidates for the forthcoming elections in Tamil Nadu.
• CM Edappadi K Palaniswami will contest from Edappadi. Deputy CM O Panneerselvam from Bodinayakanur.
• Ministers D Jayakumar and C Ve Shanmugam will contest from Royapuram and Villupuram. SP Shanmuganathan and S Thenmozhi will contest from Srivaigundam and Nilakottai.

Assam poll: BJP drops 11 sitting MLAs

• The BJP released its first list of 70 candidates for the Assam polls and announced that allies Asom Gana Parishad and United People’s Party Liberal will contest on 26 and eight seats, respectively.
• Party general secretary Arun Singh said CM Sarbananda Sonowal would contest from Majuli and minister Himanta Biswa Sarma from Jalukbari.
• The BJP in the first list has replaced 11 sitting MLAs with new faces. TNS