Telangana Congress leaders are a worried lot as their plans to bring AICC president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi to address a series of public meetings in Telangana may not materialise before April 12, in view of the local bodies polls and festivals.
Congress leaders were determined to see that Ms. Gandhi addressed the first meeting in Hyderabad on April 4, but it seems impossible going by the logistics and arrangements involved in mobilising large crowds.
Explaining the situation, a senior TPCC functionary said that most of the district-level leaders would be busy with the ZPTC and MPTC elections. “These leaders will not be willing to mobilise party workers for the meeting ahead of the local bodies polls on April 6,” he said. Sri Rama Navami falls on April 8 and the next day happens to be the last date for filing nominations for Assembly and Parliament elections. This leaves the party with no choice but to invite the Gandhi family after April 12.
At a meeting of the campaign committee here on Saturday chaired by chairman C. Damodar Raja Narasimha and co-chairman Mohd. Ali Shabbir, it was decided that seven public meetings would be organised. The meetings are planned at Hyderabad, Adilabad, Karimnagar, Nizamabad, Mahabubnagar, Warangal and Nalgonda or Khammam.
“We wanted to hold the first public meeting on April 4 on a massive scale, but that seems a far cry as the local bodies elections are slated for April 6,” a senior TPCC leader told The Hindu . The leaders are also not sure if Ms. Gandhi and Mr. Rahul Gandhi’s campaign managers would allow so many public meetings.
The party is banking heavily on the Gandhi family to improve its prospects and take the credit for fulfilling the six-decade-old dream of Telangana people. The meeting decided to go all-out against TRS chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao by exposing his doublespeak on the merger.
