HYDERABAD: Telangana Congress leaders will begin their Bus Yatra on February 26 after offering prayers at a dargah, a temple and a church, in order to project their party as “secular”. TPCC leaders, who named the yatra, Telangana Congress Praja Chaitanya Bus Yatra, will first offer prayers at the Nampally dargah at 10 am on February 26. From there the bus will proceed to Are Maisamma temple at Langer House where the leaders will perform puja. Later, they will take part in prayers in a church at Moinabad on their way to Chevella, which will be the starting point of their yatra.
At Chevella, they will address a public meeting at 1 pm and embark on their first leg of the tour. The bus will then traverse through villages in the Chevella, Vikarabad, Sangareddy, Tandur, Zaheerabad, Narayankhed, Bodhan, Nizamabad, Armoor, Balkonda, Nirmal, Metpalli, Jagtial, Sircilla and Karimnagar till March 9.
Even though there are 31 districts in the state, the Congress, which has been objecting to the way the new districts were created by chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao without taking the suggestions of opposition parties, has decided to consider the erstwhile ten districts as units to appoint its committees district-wise. That means there will only be ten District Congress Committees and these will be reorganised following the AICC leadership’s decision to overhaul the party set-up from Delhi to the district level. According to sources, very soon the party will reconstitute the party executive and DCCs. “During the overhaul, party veterans, who are not active in the party affairs, will be dropped and youngsters inducted,” the sources said.
Meanwhile, TPCC chief N Uttam Kumar Reddy announced that the party leadership had begun the process of identifying suitable candidates in various Assembly constituencies to contest the next polls. DCC presidents, however, will be barred from contesting elections, he said. “AICC president Rahul Gandhi wants DCC presidents to work for strengthening the party,” Uttam is learnt to have said.
Treading YSR’s path
Interestingly, not only the route but also the places of worship selected by the TPCC leaders to begin their journey had earlier been visited by YS Rajasekhara Reddy at the beginning of his 1,400-km-long padayatra from Chevella in 2003.