Congress will go into election mode from October 2: Oommen Chandy

Will collect minimum ?1 from each house as party fund

The Congress party would go into the election mode from October 2 with its rank and file going on a door-to-door campaign and collecting funds from the public and the cadre, former Chief Minister of Kerala and AICC general secretary incharge of Andhra Pradesh Oommen Chandy indicated here on Monday.

Mr. Chandy began an Assembly constituency-wise review meeting in Krishna district here. He would conduct the meetings with leaders of the 13 districts over 14 days spending one day for each district and two days for Visakhapatnam in three visits till June 28.

Addressing the media after reviewing the seven constituencies in the district, Mr. Chandy said a pamphlet would be given to every household with the ideology, achievements and plans of the party. The leaders and workers would collect one rupee as party fund from every household. Any amount would be accepted but the minimum was one rupee. Many leaders expressed anguish over the “financial difficulties” and the party had decided to go to the people, he said.

In preparation to the door-to-door campaign, the party would constitute 44,000 booth committees. “For the first time in the history of the Congress party, polling booth-wise committees are being constituted,” he said. All the households would be covered. As part of the reorganisation, Assembly constituency coordination committees would be formed after the review meetings. The booth committees would be constituted after the constitution of 680 mandal committees. The exercise of constituting the booth committees would be completed by September 1, Mr. Chandy said.

Addressing the workers earlier in the day, Mr. Chandy said the Congress had decided to lead the secular and democratic forces under the leadership of AICC president Rahul Gandhi. The party was expecting the full support of Andhra Pradesh in this movement, he said.

The party was committed to getting the Special Category Status (SCS). At its plenary, it made a political resolution to fight for it. Mr. Gandhi said the SCS would be the first order to be signed once the Congress comes to power, he said.