The roadmap for the Congress campaign in the forthcoming Assembly polls will revolve around rising unemployment, increasing job losses, economic slowdown and the hefty penalty imposed on commuters under the new Motor Vehicle Act.
In the two crucial states of Haryana and Maharashtra, where agriculture is equally important, the party may announce certain sops the way they did in Madhya Pradesh , Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh to wrest power from BJP last year.
AICC sources said that the party may also announce guaranteed stipend for unemployed youths in the poll-borne states of Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Haryana and a team has been constituted to devise a mechanism focusing on youths' aspirations.
"The roadmap is clear. Today every family of this country is affected by the bad economics of Modi government. Every household has either lost a job, or did not get any employment and worst is that the Centre blames the skills and talent of Indian youths rather than accepting they are unable to meet the demands of citizens. They announced sops to farmers but still this segment is in distress," said a senior Congress leader at AICC.
The last time when Congress saw some success under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi was in Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh where it was able to win voters by announcing populist measures for farmers, youth and poor.
While the economic slowdown has raised hopes for the grand old party to revive itself after its dismal Lok Sabha performance which ultimately led to Rahul Gandhi quitting the party president's post, it has brought trouble for the ruling BJP just ahead of elections in States where the BJP is in power.
Congress and alliance partners are constantly trying to corner the Modi government on slowdown, unemployment and rural distress. General secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has been constantly talking about the issues concerning the youth like unemployment and job loss by taking to social media.
The mood in the Congress is also upbeat with the rise in monetary collections through donations. The party's treasury has seen a five-fold increase at Rs 146 crore in 2018-19 from mere Rs 26 crore in the last fiscal.
While erstwhile Tata-backed Progressive Electoral Trust emerged as biggest donor with Rs 55 crore, Prudent Electoral Trust (chiefly backed by Bharti Airtel group and DLF) donated Rs 39 crore. Prudent in last fiscal had donated Rs 144 crore to the BJP and Rs 10 crore to Congress. Party president Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi contributed Rs 54,000 each this fiscal.
