Just three days after accommodating more leaders from backward classes in the PCC executive to give a “pro-BC” look to the party in the run-up to the 2014 polls, the Congress high command has started weighing options to give more seats to BCs in the general elections to face headwinds like Jagan factor and the Telangana sentiment.
The day-long exercise of gathering opinions from the heads of the district Congress committees (DCCs) on the probables for the Lok Sabha elections, undertaken by the AICC vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s representative and AICC general secretary Madhusudan Devram Mistry at the Gandhi Bhavan here, more or less revolved around this concept.
Madhusudan Mistry, a BC leader from Gujarat, who has been handpicked by Rahul Gandhi to directly interact with the state Congress leaders to chalk out a “strategy” to revive the Congress in the state, threw a host of questions to the DCC heads during his one-on-one with each of them on how to make the party bounce back in the polls.
In order to finalise party candidates’ list for the upcoming elections, the AICC pointsman cross-checked the report, which was submitted to Rahul Gandhi by the three “secret” agents, who visited various Lok Sabha segments in the state recently.
Sources said that as the state had won as many as 33 MPs for the Congress in 2009 polls, the single largest contingent for the UPA government, Mistry during his interaction with the DCC heads, sought their suggestions on how to retain maximum number of these seats.
He tried to gauge the electoral dynamics of caste in Seemandhra and Telangana by posing various questions on the impact of YSRC on Reddys, Dalits and weaker sections in Seemandhra as well as the influence of TRS on the downtrodden classes in Telangana.
He also reportedly enquired about the TDP’s impact on the BCs as its chief N Chandrababu Naidu has announced a “BC declaration” for their benefit.
Meanwhile, some DCC heads told Mistry that there was lack of coordination between ministers and the party. In fact, it is the first time that the views of the DCC heads are being gathered by the party leadership while finalising party probables’ list for the polls.
“Mistry gathered information based on the reports he had with him on the performance of party MPs. I hope this exercise will do good to the party to pick winnable candidates for the ensuing polls,” C Ramachandra Reddy, DCC president Adilabad, told reporters.
Rahul’s envoy on Thursday held one-on-ones with DCC presidents from Adilabad, Hyderabad, Karimnagar, Kurnool, Krishna, East Godavari, Guntur, Chittoor and Rajahmundry Urban. He also had a separate interaction with Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy and PCC chief Botcha Satyanarayana.
