New Delhi(PTI): As part of efforts to get battle-ready for the Karnataka Assembly polls next year, the Congress on Saturday formed a political affairs committee that included several party bigwigs from the state and also appointed five secretaries attached with AICC general secretary in-charge Randeep Surjewala.

Congress President Sonia Gandhi set up a 22-member political affairs committee with Surjewala as the convenor and PCC chief D K Shivakumar, former chief ministers Siddaramaiah and M Veerappa Moily, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, senior party leaders B K Hariprasad, Dinesh Gundurao, Margret Alva, D K Suresh and party's task force member Sunil Kanugolu, among its members.

Gandhi also appointed five AICC Secretaries attached with the General Secretary Incharge of Karnataka, Surjewala, with immediate effect.

D Sridhar Babu, MLA; PC C Vishnunadh, MLA; Roji M John, MLA; Mayura S Jayakumar and Abhishek Dutt have been named as secretaries attached to Surjewala.

Kuldeep Rai Sharma and Raminder Singh Awla have been relieved from their current responsibilities as AICC Secretaries, the party said in a statement.

As per the five-year scheduled term, the election is to be held in April-May next year.

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Kolkata (PTI): Ratna Debnath, mother of the raped-murdered RG Kar hospital doctor and the BJP candidate from Panihati, filed her nomination papers on Thursday.

She was accompanied by senior BJP leader and former Union minister Smriti Irani and district party leaders.

Speaking to reporters after filing her nomination, she said her sole aim is to oust the TMC regime in West Bengal, which, she alleged, would ensure women's safety in the state and prevent a recurrence of incidents like the RG Kar case.

Nearly a year and a half after the brutal killing of her 26-year-old daughter inside a locked seminar room of the state-run hospital in August 2024, Debnath agreed to contest the polls on a BJP ticket from her hometown Panihati after being approached by the party "to bring to light the truth behind the crime".

She is pitted against TMC's Tirthankar Ghosh and CPI(M)'s Kalatan Dasgupta.