PM, Sonia, Rahul to campaign for Bengal polls

Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and AICC General Secretary Rahul Gandhi will hit the campaign trail for the West Bengal Assembly elections that are being fought by the party in alliance with the Trinamool Congress.

"Yes Yes. They will be campaigning for the party besides other national leaders, but no date has yet been fixed," Congress Working Committee member Shakeel Ahmed, in-charge of party affairs in the state, told PTI from Delhi today.

The Congress, he said, would release its election manifesto for the Assembly polls in Kolkata on April three. Ally Trinamool Congress released its poll manifesto on March 21.

Several Congress leaders in Kolkata and in the districts have threatened to field independent candidates against Trinamool Congress nominees to protest the party's acceptance of the alliance on Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee's terms.

The first phase of the six-phase poll is scheduled to begin on April 18 when there would be voting in 54 seats in North Bengal where Congress has a comparatively better footprint than Trinamool Congress which has a strong footing in South Bengal.

But restriction on the use of loudspeakers till April 13, keeping in mind the examination season, has shrunk time for campaigning before the polling on April 18.

"Mamatadi has already said in Delhi that there will be joint campaign between Congress and Trinamool Congress," a close aide of hers and Trinamool Congress All-India General Secretary Mukul Roy.