Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president and MP A. Revanth Reddy on Wednesday alleged that Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao was “playing divisive politics” among teachers and employees after realising that government employees will not vote for his party in the next elections.
“GO 317 has been used to create a rift between the seniors and juniors by the Chief Minister but his devilish approach will only strengthen the resolve of four lakh employees and teachers to revolt against the controversial GO,” he said.
Mr. Reddy was addressing a meeting at Gandhi Bhavan on the occasion of Teachers' Union leader G. Harshvardhan Reddy and his followers rejoining the Congress.
He said teachers, who were supposed to go to schools to teach children, were forced to besiege Pragathi Bhavan and KCR was ensuring that they were arrested and humiliated on the streets.
The Congress chief ridiculed Telangana BJP president Bandi Sanjay’s protest against the GO and pointed out that the BJP government at the Centre was equally to be blamed for the controversial GO as it was cleared by the Union Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and also got cleared by the President. Therefore, both TRS and BJP are responsible for the sufferings caused to employees and teachers through GO 317.
The TPCC chief announced that the Congress would soon launch a massive agitation demanding job notifications. He said that a section of police officers was behaving like TRS cadre, and were creating hurdles to all the programmes being taken up by the Congress. But the party would reach people by crossing all obstacles and raise its voice against the State and Central governments.
He welcomed Mr. Harshvardhan into the Congress fold. He also praised former Minister G. Chinna Reddy for showing a big heart by bringing back Mr. Harshvardhan into the Congress despite the latter contesting against him in the MLC elections.
30 lakh membership target
Earlier in the day, Mr. Revanth Reddy held a meeting at Indira Bhavan to review the status of the party's digital membership drive.
He said the Congress should have at least 100 members in each of 34,765 polling booths across Telangana and asked the cadre to get stronger in at least 5 mandals to win an Assembly seat. Similarly, the party could easily win a Lok Sabha seat if it has strength in 35 mandals. Likewise, the Congress can come to power in the State if it gains strength in 600 mandals, he said.
The TPCC chief said that the contribution of hardworking leaders and workers only would be duly recognised.
Senior leaders including AICC secretaries N. Bose Raju and Srinivasan Krishnan, MLA Seethakka, Mahesh Kumar Goud and Anjan Kumar Yadav, H. Venugopal, Mallu Ravi and others were present in the meeting.
