HYDERABAD: After deciding to focus on 31 reserved Assembly constituencies in the state by deploying ‘Rahul Brigade’ consisting of 1.15 lakh workers to woo SCs and STs, the Congress’ traditional vote bank, back to the party’s fold, the TPCC leadership on Sunday resolved to set up a ‘cultural wing’ to beat the ruling TRS at its own game.
The cultural wing is expected to work for strengthening of the party at the grassroots by propagating the party’s core ideology among the masses in the “native style”. This decision was taken at the TPCC’s extended executive meeting held at Gandhi Bhavan on Sunday in the presence of AICC leader in charge of the party’s state affairs RC Khuntia.
The leadership thinks that the cultural wing will help the party take on the TRS whose trump card during elections was the ‘T-sentiment’ which was exploited to the hilt by roping in Telangana folk artistes.
“The cultural wing will consist of Telangana folk singers and rural artistes. It will undertake a massive campaign in villages against the failures of the state government and make people aware that statehood to Telangana became possible only because of the iron will of AICC supremo Sonia Gandhi.
The wing will be helpful in striking a chord with the rural folk,” TPCC spokesman Dasoju Sravan told Express. The meeting, which was attended by TPCC chief N Uttam Kumar Reddy, leader of the opposition in the Assembly K Jana Reddy and others, also decided to set up a research and analysis wing for the party to formulate strategies in accordance with the needs of the people in each Assembly constituency.
The executive committee resolved to appoint social media coordinators from village to state levels to make party leaders more visible on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. With the TRS leadership deciding to consolidate that party’s position in constituencies where the party is weak in time for 2019 polls and the BJP’s central leadership too bestowing special attention on the state, the TPCC too decided to take steps to regain its lost ground from the village to state level. Towards this goal, it decided to hold Rahul Sandesh Yatra and public meetings in each district besides conducting a campaign at polling booth level to expose TRS government’s failures.