TRS to make leaders TV debate-ready in August

Hyderabad: It has been a month since the TRS has prevented its leaders from participating in TV panel discussions. Chief Minister and TRS president K Chandrashekar Rao at the state executive meeting held in June announced that only designated leaders would participate in the TV discussions.

KCR had taken this decision to avoid half-baked statements by leaders on various issues which could lead to new controversies. But then the party has not yet finalised the panel of speakers who would participate in the discussions.

As such no leader is willing to accept any invitation from the media. Even the press conferences that were normally held on regular basis are not being held now. According to sources, the chief minister had taken this decision since any stand taken by the leaders without knowing the partyline could give ammunition to the opposition to launch counterattack on TRS.

The opposition parties, which are not able to find any issue to corner the government, could utilise the remarks by leader who may be lacking proper information on the partyline to create avoidable trouble for the party.

For example, if a discussion on irrigation projects and sharing of river waters takes place, any comment could result in either a controversy or friction between the two states and it could impact the relations between the two Telugu states.

Secondly, the party chief wants a system in place where only the leaders assigned to do a particular duty would have to take that responsibility for effective communication.

Party sources said that they would soon be giving required training about the government programmes and party's policies. The party is slated to start training sessions for the leaders after the membership drive.

The party office would soon have a library and the leaders would be given feedback on various subjects before they address the press conference.

The source said that the party chief was in process of finalising the list of speakers soon. Party leaders would be back on air from August, he felt.