Hyderabad: The Congress, which has been subjected to severe drubbing at the hands of ruling TRS over the last three years, is for the first time organising a mega public meeting at Sangareddy on Thursday. The party hopes that the meeting will help it regain its lost ground in TS.
By all accounts, the meeting will see AICC vice-president Rahul Gandhi virtually launching the party’s poll campaign for the 2019 elections.
When the elections will be held in 2019, the question that naturally comes to mind is: “Why the public meeting now?”
TPCC chief N. Uttam Kumar Reddy explained this to DC by saying: “We still believe Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao will go for snap polls in early 2018. Naturally, we have to be cautious about his political moves. We did not properly communicate to the people what we had done before 2014.”
Mr Reddy continued: “Though we are responsible for bringing statehood to Telangana and promised several things in our election manifesto, we did not properly convey this to the people. All this needs a boost and that is why we are organising this mega public meeting with Rahul Gandhi.”
The Congress had been at the receiving end from the TRS these three years; it lost two Lok Sabha and two Assembly bypolls that were held. Besides, it lost seven elected MLAs and one Lok Sabha Member who defected to the TRS, and five MLCs.
The only solace for the Congress was that it was able to win two MLC seats from local body constituencies in Nalgonda and Mahbubnagar.
For many months, there has been no consensus among the Congress bigwigs on strengthening the party in the state; it was only over the past few months that the party leaders have realised that unless they rise to the occasion, they will be relegated to the “has-beens”.
However, on its part, the ruling TRS is not giving the Congress to make a big splash in the coming polls.
The Chief Minister has been making promises, galvanising the party cadre, conducting periodical surveys on people’s pulse, besides pushing ongoing schemes and projects.
The BJP, which has a sizeable presence in urban pockets has also started strengthening the organisation, starting with organising the three-day tour by party national president Amit Shah.
Notably, the Congress has only recently started taking up agitations on forcible land acquisitions, remunerative prices for various agriculture produces etc.
“We will not only expose TRS failures, but will also set various goals and make promises from time to time so that they percolate to the people who will ultimately decide under whose hands they will be safe,” Mr Reddy said
