Rahul to visit Maharashtra by end of Dec as Cong gets serious about state

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div id=”pcl-full-content”>Faced with the challenge of energising the party organisation ahead of 2024 general elections, senior Congress leader and Lok Sabha MP Rahul Gandhi will visit Maharashtra by December end. Congress General Secretary KC Venugopal will hold a meeting of senior leaders on Friday in Nagpur to finalise the plan.

“Venugopal ji has confirmed that he is coming on Friday. He will hold a meeting of party’s senior leaders. The plan about the visit of Rahulji will be finalised. He is likely to come to Nagpur by December end,” a senior leader from Maharashtra Congress said.

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According to party sources, a grand public meeting of the Congress is being planned on December 28 at Nagpur where party workers from across the state will be called and addressed by Gandhi.

Earlier, Gandhi had visited Maharashtra during the 2019 Lok Sabha election campaign and later in 2022 during his Bharat Jodo Yatra. Party leaders from all regions had been demanding that the central leadership should focus more on Maharashtra, especially on Vidarbha where the electoral prospects are still brighter for the party.

Maharashtra has 48 Lok Sabha seats, the second highest number after Uttar Pradesh. Following the defeat of the party in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan assembly elections recently, the party is pinning its hopes on Maharashtra.

In addition, despite many constituents of INDIA front backing out from the recent meeting called by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Shiv Sena (UBT) led by Uddhav Thackeray and Nationalist Congress Party led by Sharad Pawar chose to stand by the Congress. With these two parties firmly supporting Congress, it hopes to better its performance in the upcoming general elections. Once known as a stronghold of the Congress, Maharashtra gave only two and one Lok sabha seats in 2014 and 2019 general elections to the party. During the visit of Venugopal on Friday, he will also be meeting leaders of Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA).

At present, the state unit of the Congress stands without any incharge from the AICC as previous incharge HK Patil is now a minister in Karnataka government. Patil has not visited the state in the past three months.