HYDERABAD: The Congress is preparing to take its political campaign into the Assembly constituencies represented by two of the BRS’s prominent leaders, with Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy’s proposed visit to Sircilla now scheduled for September 30.
The party has finalised a massive public meeting in Sircilla, represented by BRS working president KT Rama Rao, following Revanth’s recent announcement that he would visit the constituency. The Congress is also planning a large public meeting in Siddipet next month, the constituency represented by BRS deputy floor leader and former minister T Harish Rao.
Revanth had announced his plans at a public meeting in Nakirekal Assembly constituency, saying he would visit Sircilla and subsequently turn his attention to Siddipet. The Congress leadership has since begun preparations for his Sircilla visit, with several programmes being planned in the town and arrangements being made for large-scale mobilisation.
The choice of constituencies has given the proposed meetings an obvious political context. Rather than waiting for the BRS leadership to come out and campaign, the Congress is preparing to take its chief campaigner into the home turf of its principal opponents.
Vemulawada MLA and government Whip Aadi Srinivas has already sought to raise the political temperature ahead of the Sircilla meeting.
He alleged that Rama Rao was “shaken” after Revanth announced his visit and said that the “countdown” for him would begin in Sircilla on September 30.
Srinivas claimed that people in the constituency would begin distancing themselves from Rama Rao from that day. He said Revanth would “shake KTR” in Sircilla and asserted that the meeting would demonstrate what fear meant to Rama Rao.
He further claimed that the people of Sircilla would politically defeat the Kalvakuntla family and predicted a strong public response to Revanth’s meeting.
For the Congress, the immediate focus is Sircilla, but the larger plan is already taking shape. Siddipet is next on the party’s list, putting both the BRS working president and one of its senior leaders in the direct line of the Congress’s political campaign.
The party is now working on the mobilisation for September 30. In politics, the first meeting often sets the tone for the ones that follow.
