Sonia to kick off Chhattisgarh poll campaign on May 20

Congress President Sonia Gandhi will kick off the party's campaign for the Chhattisgarh assembly polls, scheduled for the year-end, from May 20.

Announcing this in Raipur on Monday, Chief Minister Ajit Jogi said she will visit the tribal dominated Bastar and Sarguja districts on the first day and address two party rallies in their district headquarters Jagdalpur and Ambikapur.

It will be her first visit to the tribal region after the state was formed in 2000, Jogi said, adding she had earlier visited Mungeli in Bilaspur district, Kawardha, Dongargaon of Dongargarh and Raipur and held meetings.

Jogi said the ruling Congress has also formed two separate committees, headed by Chhattisgarh Pradesh Congress Committee vice president Pawan Diwan for preparing the election manifesto and a committee headed by CPCC general secretary Rajendra Tiwari for the publicity.

He added that he was against the methodology of calling applications from the aspirants to finalise the names since they keep moving from place to place.