The Governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) has upped its target of votes in the stronghold of bitter rivals, the NPP.

The party now hopes to obtain 1.5 million votes from the Ashanti Region which has traditionally voted the New Patriotic Party.

Since last year and most part of this year, the NDC has been touting government’s achievements in the region and vowing to cut the size of the opposition’s vote significantly.

NDC leaders and government spokespersons had consistently talked about the NDC’s plan to garner a million votes from the second largest region in the country.

But at its campaign launch in the regional capital, Kumasi, the NDC revised its one million vote target to 1.5 million.

In the last elections in 2012, the NDC’s John Mahama obtained 612,616 votes representing 28.35% percent of total valid votes cast in the region. His main opponent, Nana Akufo-Addo of the NPP garnered 1.531, 152 representing 70.86% of the votes cast.

The NDC now hopes to triple its share of votes which partly the reason for lavish campaign launch in the region Saturday.  

National Organiser and Campaign Coordinator of the NDC, Kofi Adams, said the revision was informed results of research conducted by the party in the region.

According to him, the NDC conducted research in all polling stations in the region and is confident it will achieve its target.

Speaking at the mammoth rally, Vice-President Paa Kwesi Amissah Arthur touted President John Mahama's government's achievements in the region.

He said purely on the basis of the work done, the president deserved another term.

He referred a market project in the Kumasi metropolis as the largest in Africa and said he hadn't seen a project of such magnitude anywhere else in Africa.

Ashanti Regional Minister, Alexander Ackon, condemned the NPP's promise of one-district, one-factory as impracticable.

He said the NDC's policy of providing for the specific needs of every district was the best way to go.