Congress to launch second phase of training to make party workers battle-ready for ‘Mission UP’

The Uttar Pradesh Congress will from Wednesday begin the second phase of its programme to train party workers under which 100 camps will be held to make about 30,000 of its workers ready for the assembly polls next year, party sources said. The second phase of the party’s ‘Prashikshan Se Parakram Mahaabhiyan’ will begin on Wednesday and continue till September 30. Under this programme, training will be imparted on five different subjects with a special focus on booth management, the sources said. Also, training would be given to make best use of social media. Apart from these two topics, workshops will be organised on “Congress’ ideology, ‘the truth of BJP-RSS’ and ‘who spoiled Uttar Pradesh’.”

Under the ‘Kisne Bigada UP (who spoilt UP)’ header, the shortcomings of the previous rule of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Samajwadi Party (SP), besides the present BJP dispensation, will also be highlighted, the sources said. In the second phase, the party will organise 100 training camps in which about 30,000 workers and office bearers of the party are going to be trained, they said. A special training task force had been formed for this programme in July, which is carrying out the work of continuous training. In the first phase of the ‘Prashikshan Se Parakram Mahabhiyan’, the Congress had trained about 25,000 of its workers. The first phase of the campaign, which lasted for 11 days, seven 40-member master training teams carried out district-wise programmes to train block presidents, ward presidents and nyaya panchayat presidents along with district and city committee officials of the party in all the districts of Uttar Pradesh. Now this campaign will be carried out assembly-wise, the sources said. Under the overall campaign, the Congress aims to train two lakh office bearers and workers through 700 training camps. This campaign will be completed in four phases. Virtually ruling out an alliance with the SP and BSP for the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, Congress’ state unit chief Ajay Kumar Lallu had earlier this month said his party will forge alliances only with small parties and will “not even think about” joining hands with the big ones for the elections. He had also said the governments of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Samajwadi Party (SP) that have ruled Uttar Pradesh in the last 32 years, when Congress was not in power, failed to live up to the expectations of the people and the Congress was set for a comeback in the state.