Down and Out Congress Plans to Tread Revival Path in Andhra Pradesh
HYDERABAD: After a brief lull, Andhra Pradesh Congress heavyweights have begun focusing their attention on formulating strategies to resuscitate the party from the moribund state in Seemandhra.
Some of them held their party Delhi bosses responsible for the party’s dismal performance in the general polls. Some others confessed that they failed to win over the hearts of electorate while their peers wanted a new way of approach to resurrect the party.
Prominent among the suggestions given by the party bigwigs, during a brainstorming session held here on Sunday, to revive the party is shifting the AP headquarters of the party from Hyderabad to Seemandhra at the earliest so as to re-establish the lost contact with the common man in the State.
Inviting AICC chief Sonia Gandhi and party vice-president Rahul Gandhi to hold a two-day workshop for the party second rung leaders to boost their morale and to give them a proper direction to revive the party is another advice given by the party seniors.
Some of the former Union ministers such as K Chiranjeevi, MM Pallam Raju and Killi Krupa Rani along with former state ministers like Botcha Satyanarayana, Kanna Lakshmi Narayana, Anam Ramanarayana Reddy, C Ramachandraiah, Kondru Murali Mohan and P Bala Raju along with party veterans racked their brains on Sunday on how to revive the party, which had received a humiliating drubbing in the general polls, in its once traditional bastion like Seemandhra.
The brainstorming session, held at Indira Bhavan on the premises of Gandhi Bhavan here, organised under the leadership of APCC chief N Raghuveera Reddy and AICC SC Cell chairman Koppula Raju received plenty of suggestions from the participants on formulating plans to give a new lease of life to the party in Seemandhra.
During the lengthy meeting, almost all the participants felt that bifurcation of AP had spelt doom for the party in Seemandhra. At the same time, they confessed that they had failed to publicise the Centre’s generosity in announcing special category status to truncated AP and assurances of giving financial aid to it. Because of this, people of Seemandhra had given full vent to their anger towards the Congress for dividing AP in the general polls, they added.
Anam Fires Salvos
According to sources, during the meeting, Anam Ramanarayana Reddy blamed the Congress Delhi bosses for the party’s pathetic situation in AP.
“Indira Gandhi used to take own decisions on political matters which impacted the future of Congress. But, now the AICC leadership is mainly depending on advisors to run the party. Because of this, the party has been ruined in its stronghold like Seemandhra,” Reddy was quoted as saying.
The former finance minister is learnt to have asked his peers in the AP Congress not to wait till the AICC advisors descend on them to repair the party. Instead, he advised them, to start chalking out their own course of action to revive the party in AP.
Ramanarayana Reddy, who is reportedly leaning towards the ruling TDP, is understood to have felt that ignoring Reddys, an influential caste both in AP and Telangana during the general polls by the AICC leadership, had caused an irreparable loss to the party in both the States.
Meanwhile, emerging from the meeting, APCC chief N Raghuveera Reddy told reporters that the party leadership had begun taking steps to revive the party from village level to State level. He exuded confidence that their steps would yield good results in the next two months.