VISAKHAPATNAM: After losing the general elections to Telugu Desam Party by a thin margin, YSR Congress seems to be leaving no stone unturned to capture local bodies and has started focussing on strengthening itself in urban areas. To ensure win in GVMC which rules the biggest city in truncated Andhra Pradesh, the YSRC has commenced measures to strengthen the party at the grassroots level.
As a part of it, the YSRC has appointed a five-member observers’ committee to fortify the party here. MLA Chevireddy Bhaskar Reddy, senior leaders Tammineni Sitaram, Vijaya Sai Reddy, Mopidevi Venkataramana and another person will constitute the committee which will review party performance on a weekly basis.
“We observed that we failed in the general elections due to lack of planning and this time were not going to give any opportunity to TDP,” said Vijaya Sai Reddy, addressing the media here Thursday. He told party workers that those aspiring for party tickets/posts need not lobby for them, but should focus on work. If worthy, the party itself would honour them with tickets/posts. He pointed out that the YSRC had completed appointment of the committees at all levels and would start enrolment for membership in the next two months.
Meanwhile, Chandragiri MLA Chevireddy Bhaskar Reddy alleged that Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu was bent on taking up the Pattiseema project to gift his son Lokesh and his friends for funding and bringing the TDP into power. “About Rs 380 crore changed hands towards commission for approval of the project,” he added. He dared Chandrababu Naidu to conduct elections for the GVMC immediately and went to say that if he had the guts, the CM would have conducted the elections with or without merging the five opposing villages.