PUNE: Claiming to have fulfilled 75 percent of election promises made to the voters, the Congress Party in Maharashtra is gearing up to the possibility of early elections to the Parliament and state assembly.
In this context, the party yesterday announced in Pune an elaborate schedule to hold over 9,000 rallies across Maharashtra, in an attempt to create public awareness on what it claimed to be the good work done by the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party-led Democratic Front government in the state.
The monthlong campaign will kick-start from the Hindu religious town of Shirdi in Ahmednagar on Nov. 19 — the birthday of former Congress leader and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and will conclude on Dec. 28 after covering 222 municipal corporations, 222 municipal councils and the rural segments of 33 districts.
Congress spokesperson Anant Gadgil told the media that his party has to convey to the people now that it had fulfilled 75 percent of the promises it made while seeking their mandate.
Gadgil blamed the media for the current turmoil in the state over better guaranteed of jobs to locals in the state and said that the media were out to tarnish the image of the state in the country.
“Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh had stood up in time to respond to the concerted tirade launched by north Indian leaders Lalu Prasad Yadav and Nitish Kumar, but the BJP and the Shiv Sena refused to respond to his repeated pleas to come together and issue a joint statement,” Gadgil said. The Congress spokesperson, however, conceded that the party was in full agreement with the Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) issue but differed in the way it needs to be tackled. He made it clear that the chief minister has no intention to hold any talks with the MNS until it gave up its militant methods.
Gadgil said that he has no fears that the “75 percent promise fulfillment” record stands threatened by the Congress-NCP dismal record in providing electricity to the people.
