The Congress party would go it alone in the general elections and field candidates for all the 175 Assembly and 25 Lok Sabha constituencies in Andhra Pradesh, AICC general secretary and person-in-charge of the State Oommen Chandy said in Vijayawada on Wednesday.
The announcement came a day after its electoral ally in Telangana, Telugu Desam Party’s (TDP’s) president N. Chandrababu Naidu met AICC president Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi.
Oommen Chandy. File
Mr. Chandy said the 200 convenors of the constituencies and the State executive committee members would meet in Vijayawada on January 31 to finalise election arrangements.
The executive committee decided to conduct a State-wide bus yatra under the leadership of Pradesh Congress Committee president N. Raghuveera Reddy in February, he said.
He said people of Andhra Pradesh knew that only the Congress could get them the Special Category Status (SCS) pointing out that Mr. Rahul Gandhi had said the first file he would sign would be on the SCS if the Congress came to power.
Mr. Chandy said the Congress would again invite the leaders who left it to come back.
Asked if he had informed Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu about the decision, Mr. Chandy said his connection was with the AICC and not with the TDP.
Mr. Raghuveera Reddy said the CWC in a unanimous resolution left the question of alliance with the TDP to Mr. Rahul Gandhi and he came out with the decision. He appealed to the public to make the national bandh, organised against the BJP by the non-BJP parties, on February 1 a success. He said a lot of decisions were being taken in the last session of Parliament. Lakhs of crores was going to be allocated for various schemes and reservations to forward castes. The NDA government should grant the SCS along with all these benefits to other States, he said.
Former TTD chairman Kanumuri Bapiraju hailed the decision to go it alone saying it would strengthen the party.
