The Pradesh Congress Committee president Botcha Satyanarayana has set June 10 deadline for filling all the vacancies in mandal, block and division committees.
At a meeting of the DCC coordinators at Gandhi Bhavan on Monday, Mr. Satyanarayana reviewed progress of constitution of the panels at grass-roots level.
He impressed upon the coordinators to ensure that the panels were ready by June 10 so that the party would be geared up to face the election to the local bodies beginning in last week of next month.
The PCC chief made it clear that the mandal committees should have at least five members while the district panel would have minimum of 15.
All the office bearers would be issued identity cards by the party headquarters while efforts were on to computerise the district offices. Some coordinators pointed out that the filling of the mandal, block and division committees were delayed due to local MPs not approving the names.
The PCC chief promised to issue guidelines to overcome the hiccup. Some leaders cautioned the party leadership to be wary of the market, library and temple committee chairpersons, who were likely to switch their loyalties to the YSR Congress. Mahila Congress president Ganga Bhavani urged the party to give 50 per cent tickets to women in the local bodies. She wanted the leaders to identify the women candidates, who fought the last Assembly elections on Congress ticket and hold a training programme for them.
The meeting was attended among others by PCC coordination committee member Md. Ali Shabbir and party office bearers – Madasu Gangadharam, G. Niranjan, Chairman of 20 Point Programme N. Tulasi Reddy and others.