Congress to fight Assam panchayat polls alone

Guwahati: The ruling Congress party would fight the upcoming panchayat polls in Assam on its own and is confident of a good performance. Speaking with reporters after a meeting of coordination committee of the party at his official residence in Guwahati today, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi also targeted the opposition parties.[caption id=“attachment_523236” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi. Image courtesy PIB[/caption] “Till now we do not see any possibility of an alliance.We will fight the panchayat polls on our own,” Gogoi said. The panchayat elections are slated for January 2013 and all parties have started preparations for it. “In today’s meeting we discussed on ways to further strengthen our party in the state and formulate our strategy for the panchayat polls. We also talked about steps to be taken to fight the disinformation campaign launched by the opposition against us,” Gogoi said. The chief minister refuted the opposition’s charge of corruption and said while he accepted that the problem existed, it was “much less than during the days of the Asom Gana Parishad regime”. During the meeting, the party decided to organise a mass rally at Guwahati on 25 November for sounding the bugle for the polls. Besides senior party leaders, the meeting was also attended by ministers and Congress legislators. PTI