New chief of TN Congress vows to win all 40 seats in TN & Pondy

K S Alagiri, the newly appointed president of Tamil Nadu Congress Committee, has vowed to work hard to win 40 Lok Sabha seats (39 in Tamil Nadu and one in Puducherry). Talking to journalists on Sunday, he said his main focus will be on strengthening the party's organisational structure, which will be a key factor in winning the polls.

Today our secular friends are aiming for 40 constituencies in both Tamil Nadu and Puducherry in the upcoming elections. Congress party will also toil for this, he said. According to Alagiri, who is said to be a supporter of former union minister and party veteran P Chidambaram, "My first target is to strengthen the party structure. A political party with a strong structure only will come out victorious. I will be working with other senior leaders for this."

Slamming the AIADMK and the BJP, the ruling parties in the state and the Centre, respectively, he said both the regimes have hampered development in the country and State. He alleged that both the Central and State governments lacked understanding of economics, agriculture and society. He added: "As a result, there is backwardness in almost all sectors. Development has taken a back seat in agriculture, while GST has irked the middleclass and unemployment has increased."