To tame the lion in its own den, the Telangana Congress will hold the much anticipated Dalita Girijana Dandora in Gajwel, the constituency represented by Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao, on Friday.
This will be the first major programme of the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) in Gajwel where the party has also lost its own candidate to the TRS with Vanteru Pratap Reddy, who contested against the Chief Minister as a Congress candidate shifting his loyalties to the ruling party.
However, the new TPCC chief A. Revanth Reddy has decided to send a strong message to the Congress cadre that the party wants to fight organising a public meeting on the dalit and tribal issues at a time when the Chief Minister has launched the unique ₹10 lakh cash transfer programme for the Scheduled Castes (SCs) under the Dalita Bandhu scheme.
This will be the last of the series of Dalita Girijana Dandora meetings organised by the Congress party accusing the TRS government of deceiving dalits and girijans with unfulfilled promises. The first of such meeting was held at Indervelli village in deep forests of combined Adilabad district on August 9. The village has a significant place in Telangana’s history where a martyrs memorial was erected in memory of people who were killed in police firing in 1981 for their struggle against encroachment of lands. The first meeting turned out to be successful given the location and pepped up the fighting spirit of the Congress cadre. The second meting at Raviryala on the outskirts of Hyderabad too was a grand success considering the response it evoked from the party cadre.
At Gajwel, the party doesn’t want to confine itself to speeches but release a document, which it calls a ‘charge sheet’ against the TRS government. The ‘charge sheet’ will highlight the promises made to dalits and tribals by the TRS party and the government -- but not fulfilled.
The first Dalit Chief Minister for Telangana, a promise made by Mr. Rao during the agitation days and subsequently ignored will be yet again be taken to people’s notice apart from providing three acres land to each Dalit family. The ‘charge sheet’ being prepared by former Deputy CM Damodar Rajnarsimha, AICC secretary Madhu Yaskhi Goud and CLP leader Bhatti Vikramarka also alleges that five lakh acres of land given to Dalits was taken away by the government in the name of projects. The Cong. has given 24 lakh acres to Dalit families of which 5 lakhs were taken away, alleges the ‘charge sheet’. Diversion of funds from the SC/ST sub plan and 60,000 unfilled vacancies have actually caused enormous loss to dalits, it alleges. Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge will release the charge sheet along with other senior leaders. The Gajwel meeting, incidentally on Telangana Liberation Day (Telangana Vimochana Dinotsvam), has been taken quite seriously. Mr. Damodar Rajanarasimha and former minister J. Geeta Reddy took up the responsibility and visited villages to mobilise party workers.
In a related development, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) is making all efforts to scuttle the meeting reportedly getting in touch with local public representatives at village level and trying to desist any move of public being mobilised for the public meeting.
