Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee president N. Raghuveera Reddy has exhorted the party cadre and leaders to focus on mounting pressure on the TDP government at the State and the NDA coalition at the Centre to fulfil the promises the alliance made before the elections.
The APCC president admitted that the party failed to get representation in the Assembly of the new State and the Lok Sabha after the elections. But this would not have any impact on the functioning of the party. “Though the people did not elect the Congress candidates, they cast responsibility on the party to ensure that all the promises made by the TDP-BJP alliance before the elections are fulfilled,” he said.
He was speaking at the inaugural of a meeting to review the performance of the party in the recent elections. All the 198 defeated candidates of the party, MLCs, Rajya Sabha members, former Central and State Ministers and district and city Congress presidents attended the meeting.
Appreciating the candidates, who contested on the party ticket, he said the candidates managed to stay in the fray to uphold the honour of the party. He was critical of senior party leaders who switched loyalties to other parties after the Congress gave them due recognition in the form of important party/government posts.
The APCC president said there was no need for the party rank and file for getting depressed with the election results as the Congress was committed to serve the people whether in power or outside. This was unlike other political parties which only measured their successes by contesting the elections and winning them.
Senior party including K.V.P. Ramachandra Rao, Singam Basavapunnaiah, Vatti Vasanta Kumar, Devineni Rajasekhar and others were present. MLC Rudraraju Padmaraju in a resolution condoled the death of former Chief Minister N. Janardhana Reddy, students of Vignan Jyothi Engineering College and people who died of heat stroke in the past few days.