In order to launch an attack on the Modi-led BJP government in the run up to Gujarat assembly elections due in December 2012, Gujarat Congress has decided to raise corruption as its main poll-campaign issue.

Party sources said that their poll-strategy this time will revolve around the issue of corruption, while other issues like blot of 2002 riots will be underplayed.

Expecting early state polls, the state Congress has also planned to launch the campaign from September 28, for the assembly polls, which are still a year and two months away.

"Corruption will be one of the major issues that the party will take up in the coming elections," Party spokesperson Manish Doshi said.

The recent appointment of Lokayukta in the state by Gujarat governor has resulted in open confrontation between the BJP and the Congress in the state.

"We have decided to give a week-long agitation programme against Modi government's opposition to the appointment of Lokayukta from September 5. We will go before the people and expose the double standards of the party," Doshi said.

"During the campaign, the party would launch agitation programmes on the issue of students, farmers, minorities, women issues, backward classes and tribes which have been ignored by the Modi government," he added.

State Congress president Arjun Modhvadia also said that monthly programmes on "people's issues, which have been ignored by the Modi-led government in last ten years," have been planned.

According to party sources, the Anna Hazare agitation has had a positive effect on the minds of people of Gujarat. "At that time we have been able to score a major victory over the BJP on the issue Lokayukta," they said.

Giving the reason behind starting the campaign so early, the newly-appointed chairman of state elections campaign committee Shankarsinh Vaghela said, "We want to be prepared for any circumstances. The Modi government which is encircled by allegations of corruption can declare early elections as the constitution gives them power to have elections six months in advance."

Vaghela, who had left the BJP and joined the Congress and is considered to be a bitter rival of Modi, will start the campaign from Mata No Madh in Kutch, which gives indications that the Congress will also have a soft-Hindutva line in the state where religious division are deep-rooted, party sources said.

"On the one hand, opposing the appointment of Lokayukta by the Gujarat governor and on the other hand supporting Anna Hazare movement, the BJP has been exposed in Gujarat," they added.

"Now it is for the people of the state, who will have to decide on this double standards of the Modi government," Vaghela added.