Congress shifts gears as poll date approaches
TPCC president Revanth Reddy, AICC Incharge Manikrao Thackeray along with senior Congress leaders at Gandhi Bhavan on Saturday Photo: G Ramesh
Hyderabad: The political activity in the state is gaining heat with every passing day. While the BRS is likely to announce the list of 105 party candidates for the Assembly polls, the Telangana Congress has decided to kick start a full- fledged poll campaign from Chevella on August 26.
AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge will be attending this proposed mammoth meeting. He will also release the SC, ST declarations.
This would be followed by more public meetings which would be addressed by Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi. Sonia Gandhi is expected to release the party manifesto on September 17 which happens to be the Telangana Liberation Day.
Other declarations like minority resolution would be released at the Warangal public meeting to be addressed by Rahul Gandhi.
AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi will release the Women’s Declaration at the next meeting most probably to be held at Hyderabad.
It may be recalled that she had released the Youth and Farmers’ Declarations at her last meeting in Hyderabad. The Telangana Congress, which held a day-long meeting at Gandhi Bhavan on Saturday, finalised this roadmap.
According to A Revanth Reddy, all the leaders will hold Assembly constituency level meetings between August 21 and 25 to mobilise people in large numbers for public meetings. The TPCC, which is strictly following the Karnataka pattern of campaign, has decided to distribute Congress Guarantee cards to win the confidence of all sections.
Leaders will visit every house and distribute these cards.
It is learnt that Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar is the guiding force for the TPCC in preparing the road map. The possibility of him playing an active role in campaign and finalising campaign strategies is not ruled out. There are speculations that Karnataka Congress may even extend some financial help to TPCC if need be.
The Congress party wants that the TPCC leaders should now spread out across the state and take up mass campaigns “exposing the omissions and commissions of the BRS government.”