The party needs to sustain the momentum of the victory it achieved in the 30 November Assembly elections last year and disprove the BRS' contention that it was just a flash in the pan.
CM Revanth Reddy with Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge (X)
The Jana Jatara, the mammoth public meeting that Congress is organising at Tukkuguda in Hyderabad on 6 April, is intended to re-assert that the party is on a roll.
The party needs to sustain the momentum of the victory it achieved in the 30 November Assembly elections last year and disprove BRS’ contention that it was just a flash in the pan.
Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka after visiting the venue of the public meeting on Thursday, 4 April said: “I am making an appeal to people from Khammam to Adilabad and from Mahabubnagar to Warangal to attend the meeting in large numbers. Let us demonstrate to the entire nation how strong we are.”
The deputy chief minister, for his part, would underrate the responsibility of motivating the people and party workers in Khammam district to attend the public meeting.
“I am on my way to Khammam this evening. Similarly, all ministers are at work in their respective districts,” he said, adding that the rally would be a historic occasion.
The Congress would decide the direction for the nation with its five guarantees and the manifesto it would unveil at the rally, he said. As the BJP is not a major player in Telangana, the focus would mostly be on the BRS.
However, the national leaders would “wash the dirty linen” of BJP in the public on national issues. They would also focus on the Telangana development model as it is being implemented by the present Congress regime in the state.
As Tukkuguda is the place from where Congress had blown the bugle for Assembly elections on 17 September last year, the anniversary of the Telangana Liberation Day, and captured power with a clear majority, the party is keen on repeating the spectacle in Lok Sabha polls.
The party will organise a similar rally on the same day at Jaipur in Rajasthan. Rahul Gandhi, AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge and others are expected to arrive in Hyderabad immediately after the meeting in the capital city of Rajasthan.
The Hyderabad rally is supposed to create an impact on South India as the rally in distant Jaipur may not resonate with people in the South.
At Hyderabad, the national leaders of the party would give a call to the electorate to take down the 10-year-long “BJP’s dictatorship” and its “misrule”.
They would urge the voters to elect the Congress-led coalition that would truly be their representative and also explain how it was going to uphold the trust they would repose in it.
As the meeting is going to be held in Hyderabad, the leaders are expected to draw a parallel between KCR’s 10-year rule and that of the BJP.
They would seek the support of the people to end the vice-like grip of the BJP on the nation, just as they did with KCR’s rule in Telangana.
The Congress is banking heavily on the support from women and has been coming up with schemes that benefit them the most like providing free ride to them on RTC buses in Telangana.
The party is trying to mobilise not less than one lakh women for the rally from villages towns and cities.
Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy is very keen that women should attend the meeting in large numbers. He has entrusted the responsibility to the two ministers in his cabinet – Danasari Anasuya alias Seethakka and Konda Surekha.
The chief minister is understood to have left instructions that while planning seating arrangements for those who turn up for the public meeting, the women should be in the front rows to the extent possible.
The TPCC leaders believe that the public meeting would set the tone for its attempt to push the BJP and the BRS to the fringes.
The party leaders are working to create the necessary optics and imagery to convey the perception that the party’s dream-run is continuing and that it will be repeated in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections too.
Revanth Reddy hopes to win at least 12 to 14 Lok Sabha seats this time as he had already addressed several gray areas in the party apparatus in the state.
In the recent past several BRS leaders have switched loyalty in favour of the Congress and the chief minster hopes this would keep the party in good stead.
In 2019, the party won only three Lok Sabha seats – Nalgonda, Bhongir and Malkajgiri – and this time the party is keen on building upon this success and emerging as a monolith in Telangana.
Already the party has been in an overdrive to discredit the BRS in the eyes of the people by digging up scams when it was in power.
At present, the phone-tapping issue has taken centre-stage with senior police officers, who are doing time, spilling the beans about at whose behest they had resorted to the illegal activity.
(Edited by Shauqueen Mizaj)
May 03, 2024
May 02, 2024
May 02, 2024
May 02, 2024
May 02, 2024
May 02, 2024
