TPCC braces up for panchayat polls, vows to show strength

​Hyderabad: Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) has vowed to demonstrate its strength in the Gram Panchayat elections, scheduled to be held in January. The TPCC met here on Monday reviewed debacle the party suffered in the just-concluded Assembly election and discussed on how to instil confidence in the party leaders and cadre.

The meeting was chaired by State Congress affairs in-charge R C Khuntia and was attended by TPCC president N Uttam Kumar Reddy, former Leader of Opposition in Assembly K Jana Reddy, former LOP in Council Shabbir Ali, AICC secretary Salim Ahmed, former PCC president Ponnala Laxmaiah and others.

Speaking to the media after the meeting, Khuntia said the TRS had won the Assembly election illegally. He said the comments of Chief Electoral Officer Rajat Kumar on the deletion of names of voters showed the functioning of the Election Commission. He said as many as 22 lakh votes had been deleted and EVMs had been tampered with. He said there were differences in the votes counted and polled and the number of votes polled had risen substantially after 4 pm on the day of polling. The ruling party had won the elections through manipulations, EVM tampering and with the help of police.

Khuntia said they have enough evidence on the illegal activities in the elections. He said they would lodge complaints on this count with the President of India and with the Election Commission of India. He said it was atrocious to note that the swearing-in of the newly elected MLAs was not held even 20 days after the declaration of results. He said the Chief Minister has proposed the Federal Front to support Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

He said because of the fear of CBI cases, the Chief Minister has been supporting the Prime Minister. He said it was wrong to presume that the Congress lost it vigour due to a defeat and made it clear that they would not be deterred by the debacle.

TPCC president Uttam Kumar Reddy said the party would launch a legal fight as far as seats like Dharmapuri, Ibrahimpatnam and Kodada Assembly constituencies in which the party candidates lost the election by lower margins.

He said that the party leaders had discussed the strategies to face the Gram Panchayat and Lok Sabha polls. He said the MLAs would be made in-charges for these polls. He alleged that the government has done injustice to the BCs by reducing the reservations for them.

Uttam Kumar Reddy said they would fight for the justice for the BCs and criticised the EC for not taking up counting of VVPAT paper trails. He demanded that the EC explain why it had not taken up counting of paper trails though the Supreme Court has given clear directions. He said that it was surprising that the newly elected MLAs were not sworn in even 20 days after the announcement of results.