Congress leaders participating in the 84th birth anniversary of one of top leaders of the party Dronamraju Satyanarayana and a meeting of party workers from the north coastal districts at the Port Kalavani auditorium here on Monday, felt that there was no truth in the observation being made by some people that the Congress would never recover in the State after the rout it faced in the 2014 elections.
They also urged the party workers to utilise the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s year-long birth centenary celebrations, which commenced during November, to explain to the people and remind them the many programme she had initiated and implemented for the welfare of the poor.
AICC SC Cell president Koppula Raju saw a change in people’s thinking on the “wrong” done by the party in bifurcating the State as some intellectuals observed that the State could get many benefits because the bifurcation exercise was done by the Congress and had it been done by the BJP AP would not have received the benefits. Former Union Minister Panabaka Lakshmi said every all-India institution and other benefits the State was getting now were because the Congress had included them in the State Reorganisation Act since it was aware that after bifurcation the State would be facing a lot of problems.
Speakers paid rich tributes to the late Dronamraju Satyanarayana and said he never wavered from the party’s line of thinking and supported it well even when it was out of power.
APCC general secretary and eldest son of the late Satyanarayana, Srinivasa Rao presided and asserted that he was striving to carry forward his father’s legacy and would never leave the party. DCC president and former Minister P. Balaraju read out the resolutions made during the meeting which covered every problem the north coastal Andhra was facing.
APCC president N. Raghuveera Reddy, APCC observer R.C. Kuntia, former Union Minister Kotla Vijayabhaskara Reddy, Killi Kruparani, and J.D. Seelam, former MLA S. China Appala Naidu, former State Minister V. Vasanth Kumar, MP K.V.P. Ramachandra Rao, and others participated. When the meeting was planned some time ago, it was decided to allow the party workers to express their opinions and ideas to revitalise the party. But this did not happen as the meeting started late and got prolonged.
Earlier the leaders and workers garlanded the statue of Dronamraju Satyanarayana at the Siripuram junction. Before the start of meeting, a short films on Dronamraju and Indira Gandhi were screened.
