The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : 20 more Assembly and 5 Lok Sabha seats is Rajasekhara Reddy’s target

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Thursday, May 15, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

20 more Assembly and 5 Lok Sabha seats is Rajasekhara Reddy’s target

HYDERABAD: Gearing the cadre for the general elections due next year, the Congress leadership asked party leaders and cadre to work for securing at least 51 per cent votes in each Assembly constituency.

Given the series of welfare and development programmes and many more in the pipeline, it should not be a difficult task for the party to win at least 20 more Assembly and five Lok Sabha seats in 2009 than in the last elections. “We have no objections if other parties like the Left want to sail with us. But the Congress should be prepared to go it alone,” Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy said.

He was delivering the concluding address at the ‘Rededication Day’, a one-day plenum of the Congress party, to mark the completion of four years in office on Wednesday.

Low-key affair

The event was a low-key affair going by the attendance of just 7,000 delegates and was marked by the presence of a heavy contingent of police in view of the high security alert.

Senior leaders, including M. Satyanarayana Rao, V.Purushottam Reddy and V. Hanumanth Rao and Union Ministers S. Jaipal Reddy and Renuka Chowdary, were not present and a majority of speakers focussed on showering accolades on the “dynamic” leadership of the Chief Minister and his “commitment to fulfil the promises made before the previous elections.” As expected, leaders from Telangana including PCC president D. Srinivas were guarded in their criticism of TRS president K. Chandrasekhar Rao, but the Chief Minister was forthright in claiming that Mr. Rao would not have floated the TRS had he been inducted into the Cabinet after 1999 elections. The PCC chief said the party would give priority to youth, the backward classes and women in the next elections.

Dr. Reddy outlined the series of programmes launched by his Government as proof for its credibility. He criticised the CPI(M) for setting aside its principles in announcing that it would try to bring together the Telugu Desam and the proposed party by film star Chiranjeevi to defeat the Congress.

Hoarding

He wanted the people to compare between the nine-year rule of the Telugu Desam and four years of the Congress and decide as to which party had kept its promises and even took up the schemes that were not assured before the elections. He urged the party cadre to be vigilant about traders hoarding commodities and creating artificial scarcity, besides bring to the Government’s notice lapses in the implementation of welfare schemes during the “crucial election year.”

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