HYDERABAD: The principal opposition party in the state, the Bharat Rashtra Samithi, is preparing to take its battle with the Congress government beyond the Assembly and into the neighbourhoods, villages and constituencies, with a week-long statewide agitation beginning September 2.
For the pink party, the exercise is about more than listing the Congress government’s alleged failures during nearly 1,000 days in office. It is also an attempt to reconnect its organisation with voters at the grassroots and put its cadre back into campaign mode ahead of a series of civic body elections and, eventually, the next Assembly polls.
The agitation, to be held under the banner of “Jung Siren-Samara Shankam”, will begin with a “chargesheet” on the performance of the Congress government. This will be followed by constituency-level protests, public displays on unfulfilled promises, farmers’ conventions and door-to-door outreach.
At the centre of the campaign will be the Congress’s six guarantees and other promises made during the Assembly election. The BRS plans to distribute “Baki Cards” listing what it describes as unfulfilled promises, taking its case directly to households rather than leaving it to party meetings and press conferences.
Party working president KT Rama Rao set the organisational machinery in motion on Friday, holding a teleconference with senior leaders, elected and former representatives and state-level functionaries. He asked them to ensure participation across their respective areas and take the campaign to the grassroots.
The choice of issues has been deliberately spread across different sections of society. Farmers’ conventions will focus on irrigation, power supply, urea distribution, crop insurance and other agricultural concerns, with the BRS seeking to contrast present conditions with those during its time in government. In Hyderabad, the party will also raise the issue of lands included in the 22-A prohibited list.
Separate events for women, students
Women, students, youth and persons with disabilities will have separate programmes. The BRS plans to target what it describes as delays or failures in implementing promises relating to financial assistance for women, KCR Kits, Kalyana Lakshmi, Shaadi Mubarak, employment, fee reimbursement, the job calendar and the Youth Declaration.
The campaign will also take the pink party into some of the state’s longstanding regional issues. In Adilabad, it plans protests over the CCI plant, while in the Singareni region it will take up workers’ concerns that local leaders have already raised at the Assembly level.
In Hyderabad, auto drivers will form part of a mobilisation around civic and urban issues, including drinking water, traffic, streetlights, law and order and the functioning of Basti Dawakhanas. In rural areas, similar programmes will focus on sanitation and other local concerns. The party is also seeking to turn the campaign into a feedback exercise. BRS leaders and cadre will submit representations at Prajavani centres on unfulfilled promises and later hold district-level press conferences to place the outcome before the public.
Behind the public campaign, however, is a message for the party’s own ranks. Rama Rao has asked senior leaders, MLAs, former MLAs, former ministers and other functionaries to take responsibility for programmes in their respective areas. Leaders who have remained inactive have also been told to participate in the agitation.
The party leadership has made it clear that organisational performance will have consequences. Leaders who fail to respond to the party’s call or address issues in their areas could be denied B Forms for the next Assembly elections.
That internal push comes as the BRS looks towards the next round of electoral tests. The agitation is expected to help the party mobilise ahead of elections to the Hyderabad, Cyberabad, Malkajgiri, Khammam, Warangal and Siddipet municipal corporations, besides other urban local bodies.
For a party that spent nearly a decade in power before losing the Assembly election, the immediate task is therefore twofold: make the Congress government answer for its promises, while getting its own organisation moving again.
