HYDERABAD: Learning a lesson from the 2014 Assembly elections, the state Congress has decided to release the next Assembly elections manifesto at the earliest and also announce the Assembly and Lok Sabha candidates at least three months in advance. The Congress leaders made these suggestions to AICC president Rahul Gandhi in Delhi on Monday.
AICC Telangana incharge RC Khuntia, PCC president N Uttam Kumar Reddy and three incharge secretaries of the state held a meeting with Rahul Gandhi on Monday. “We are ready to face the elections whenever they are held. The mandal and booth committees will be constituted by this month-end,” Khuntia told reporters in Delhi after the meeting.
Uttam Kumar Reddy said that they were planning to release the manifesto well in advance. The PCC chief explained to Rahul Gandhi about the activities of the party. Besides holding teleconferences with mandal level and booth level leaders. Uttam Kumar Reddy was interacting directly with booth level party presidents. The teleconferences would be extended even to polling both level. There were 31,600 polling booths in the state. This would be the first time that a PCC chief was directly interacting with booth level leaders. Uttam recalled that several ministers, MPs, MLAs and MLCs found it difficult to approach chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao. “Contrary to this, the Congress state leaders are in regular touch with even booth level leaders,” Uttam said.
Rahul Gandhi to participate in bus yatra
AICC president Rahul Gandhi will participate in the next phase of bus yatra of PCC chief N Uttam Kumar Reddy. The next phase of bus yatra is likely to start in the first week of August. Rahul Gandhi, after a meeting with the state Congress leaders in Delhi, said that he would participate in the next phase of bus yatra.
“Rahul Gandhi is likely to address a series of street corner meetings in Hyderabad and Rangareddy district as part of the bus yatra,” sources said. The dates and venues of Gandhi’s meetings would be finalised in due course, sources said.
In the last three phases of bus yatra, the PCC chief covered 40 Assembly segments. The bus yatra took a break due to Ramzan in June. After focusing on the organisational matters in these two months, the PCC chief has decided to resume his bus yatra in the first week of August.
Meanwhile, Uttam Kumar Reddy attended Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting. He had detailed interactions with AICC Telangana incharge RC. Khuntia on party’s activities in Telangana. Later, Uttam and Khuntia had a review meeting with AICC secretaries NS Bose Raju, Saleem Ahmed and Srinivasan Krishnan who had been assigned the task of supervising party activities in Lok Sabha segments.
Uttam Kumar Reddy also had a detailed review meeting regarding Shakti programme with AICC Data Analytics head Praveen Chakravorthy. Praveen congratulated the TPCC Chief on Telangana Congress entering the top three states with the highest number of registrations. While Rajasthan has registered 3.5 lakh workers on Shakti app, Chhattisgarh got 95,000 registrations. With 58,000 registrations, Telangana was in third place.