Ahead of the assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi will visit Jammu and Srinagar on August 21 and 22. They are visiting J&K for key meetings in preparation for the elections. The announcement of their visit comes after they met the general secretaries, in-charges and screening committee members of four poll-bound states on Monday.
Kharge, Rahul to interact with cadre
Providing information about their visit, Congress General Secretary (Organisation) KC Venugopal said, "On 21st and 22nd August, Congress President Shri Mallikarjun Kharge ji and Leader of Opposition Shri Rahul Gandhi ji will be visiting Jammu and Srinagar for key meetings in preparation for the upcoming assembly elections."
Meanwhile, Congress National General Secretary Gulam Ahmed Mir said, "Kharge and Rahul will be visiting Jammu and Kashmir for two days, starting tomorrow. They will arrive in Jammu tomorrow afternoon". Mir further said that during their stay, they will hold extensive meetings with leaders and workers in both Jammu and Srinagar, aiming to energise and strengthen the party cadre.
After the interaction with the Jammu cadre, Kharge and Rahul Gandhi will fly to Srinagar on Wednesday evening (August 21) to interact with the cadre there. On the last day of their visit (August 22), they will hold a press conference in Srinagar.
Congress open to alliance
After the meeting on Monday, Venugopal had told the media that the leaders discussed the preparations for assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, Haryana, Jharkhand, and Maharashtra, and guidelines for selecting candidates. Venugopal said that the Central Election Committee meeting for Jammu and Kashmir would take place in the next 3-4 days. He also said the party was open to an alliance in the UT and its main objective was to keep the BJP out of government.
Besides, newly-appointed J-K Congress chief Tariq Hameed Karra also iterated Venugopal's statement that the party is open to talks with like-minded parties to strike a "respectable alliance" for the J-K assembly polls however, adding that the parameters for such a tie-up would be different from the Lok Sabha elections.
(With PTI inputs)
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