Rahul Gandhi to review Congress' poll preparedness in West Bengal today

New Delhi: Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Friday will hold a virtual meeting with the senior Congress leaders to take stock of the preparations for the 2021 West Bengal Assembly elections.

The meeting will be attended by the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee (WBPC) chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, All India Congress Committee (AICC) in-charge Jitin Prasada, Members of Parliament, Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) and former MPs from the State.

The agenda of the meeting will be to review the Congress' poll preparedness in the State ahead of the Assembly polls scheduled next year. "Senior leaders will be giving their ideas and views to Rahul Gandhi, who will also interact with party cadres and will brief them about the poll strategy," a source told ANI.

It is to mention that this will be the first high-level meeting after the State Congress unit announced that the party will formulate an alliance with the CPI (M) for the Assembly polls.

In comparison to Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party seems to be emerging strongly in the State as the party, which had received 10.16 per cent of votes in 2016 Assembly polls, increased it by 4 times by registering 40 per cent vote in the 2019 General elections and winning 18 Lok Sabha seats.

Moreover, many of the MLAs, who were elected on Congress symbol in the last Assembly polls, have left the party and out of 42 Lok Sabha constituencies in the State, Congress has only two MPs.

The Congress and CPI (M) vote share had declined miserably in the 2019 General elections in comparison to the 2016 Assembly polls results. In 2016, Congress had got 12.25 per cent of the votes polled, while in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls its vote share went down to 5 per cent. Both the parties had forged an alliance in the previous Assembly polls but failed to maintain the same for the 2019 General elections. And now, they have again come together to fight the West Bengal Assembly polls.

The main challenge before the Congress is to take on West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) and to maintain its existence in the Opposition in the State Assembly.