Ahead of assembly polls, Congress appoints 149 new office-bearers to Karnataka unit
Bengaluru, Apr 9: The Congress on Saturday appointed 149 new office-bearers to the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee as the party gears up for next year's assembly polls.
Congress chief Sonia Gandhi has approved the appointment of 40 vice-presidents and 109 general secretaries to the party, two years after party leader D K Shivakumar took charge as its state unit president.
Caste and regional representation along with a combination of old and new generation leaders has been taken care of in these appointments, party sources said.
The caste-wise representation includes 53 from the backward classes, 25 from Scheduled Castes, four from Scheduled Tribes, 22 from minorities, 19 from Lingayats, five from Reddy Lingayats, 16 Vokkaligas, one transgender, and four others. A total of 23 office-bearers are women.
Setting the mood for assembly elections in Karnataka due next year, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi in his visit to the state, earlier this month, had exhorted party leaders to work together, as he set an ambitious target to win a minimum of 150 seats in the assembly.
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We will move court again to resist voter deletions: Mamata
Kolkata (PTI): West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday hit out at the BJP and the Election Commission over voter deletions during the SIR exercise and said her party will move a court again to resist the removal of electors from the rolls.
Her comments came after nearly 91 lakh voters' names were deleted from the electoral rolls following the completion of the Special Intensive Revision in the state.
“You will not be able to defeat the TMC by deleting names. We will move a court again to resist the exclusion of names," Banerjee said while attacking her principal challenger BJP over the roll revision exercise.
Banerjee had in February argued in the Supreme Court as she sought an intervention in the SIR process.
The EC figures, which pushed the total deletion to over 90.83 lakh names from the original voter base of 7.66 crore in October 2025, showed that the proportion of removal of electors now remains at over 11.85 per cent.
Criticising the poll panel over the SIR process, she also said, "We will fight legally to get the names included on the list as per the Constitution. If people cannot cast their votes, what is the need to frame the tribunal? And then you are saying that the list has been frozen. What is this? We will challenge it and try to understand it."
Addressing a poll rally at Arambagh in Hooghly district, the TMC supremo accused the saffron party of trying to manipulate the electoral rolls and offering money to woo voters.
Banerjee also charged the Election Commission with intimidating people over the phone.
“It (EC) is working at the behest of the BJP. It is calling people over the telephone to threaten and intimidate them,” she claimed.
Later, while speaking at a rally in Balagarh in the same district, Banerjee warned that voting for the BJP would effectively mean "giving up fish, meat, and speaking in Bengali".
“People are not allowed to eat eggs, fish, or meat in the BJP-ruled states like Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Maharashtra. The same will happen here if the BJP comes to power," Banerjee claimed.
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