Youngsters and the sections that had not been represented well so far would get priority in the selection of candidates for the general elections, APCC president N. Raghuveera Reddy said here on Saturday. He said he was confident that good things would happen to the Congress, . Answering several questions along with Union Minister of State and chairman of the party’s publicity committee K. Chiranjeevi at a Meet-the-Press programme organised by VJF he said the party had an open mind on extending tax holiday to existing industrial units along with fresh units as part of the package the Centre would be giving to the residual Andhra Pradesh.
Mr. Raghuveera Reddy asserted that the party would do well in the elections in spite of it being blamed by all other parties for bifurcation of the State though they had also given their consent. One wanted five lakh crore for capital and another raised Article III of the Constitution. “Congress has taken the beating several times but was not finished as many are predicting now…...In 1978 everybody thought Indira Congress would not win as Indira Gandhi was blamed for the Emergency and the Reddy Congress and Janata party were in the fray. But Indira Congress won,” he said.
There was no use of doing post-mortem on the division but what was needed now was to see how to get the best benefits for Andhra Pradesh and develop it. Ms. Sonia Gandhi wanted him and other Congress leaders to prepare a vision document and include it in the election manifesto. He was confident that the Polavaram multipurpose project would be completed.
The APCC president said the Congress party would once again ask the leaders who left the party to come back but not those who were opportunistic.
