Congress blitzkrieg against KCR

• No-holds-barred attack on the TRS leader begins
• T leaders confident people will stand by Cong
• People aware of Sonia’s resolve even in the face of strong protests
• Vijayashanti ready to quit Cong, if it helps TRS merge with the party
• She warns T people that KCR would usher in ‘Velama Dora rule’

Hyderabad: With the Election Commission (EC) set to announce the poll schedule on Wednesday and the TRS making it clear there would be no merger with Congress party, the Congress high command has decided to be aggressive and face municipal and General Elections on its own.

According to AICC sources, Sonia Gandhi asked Digvijay Singh on Tuesday to hold a meeting with T Congress MPs and work out strategies on how to counter TRS and take forward the party in the T region. She wanted that the Congress should go aggressive and see that the credit of granting T state goes to the party. She is also understood to have directed Digvijay Singh to visit Andhra Pradesh in about a weeks’ time. The issue of carving separate PCC for Telangana is also learnt to have figured.

Meanwhile, the party high command called the PCC president Botcha Satyanarayana to New Delhi.

The Congress leaders from Telangana have been asked to launch a campaign against KCR and expose how he had taken a U-turn on his promise to merge the party. PCC vice-president Mohammed Ali Shabbir was among the first to launch an attack on KCR. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday he said, "We don't want any alliance with TRS." He asked the party cadre to be ready to face the elections on their own. He was confident that Congress would win majority of 119 assembly and 17 Lok Sabha seats in Telangana.

Former Minister D Sridhar Babu said the Congress need not depend on any other party. “I am sure people of Telangana will back Congress,” he said.

The Congress leaders said the party did not create Telangana State for votes and seats. "We sacrificed our government. We expelled our MPs from the party because the party president wanted to fulfill the promise made to people of Telangana," Sridhar added.

The new entrant into Congress and former TRS leader Vijayashanti also lashed out at KCR. She said if KCR went back on merger just because of her joining the Congress, then she was ready to quit Congress. She said KCR was only trying to find excuses to go back on his word. “If TRS comes to power, T State will be again under the clutches of Velama dora’s rule,” she said.

She added that a leader was one who would stand by his word. KCR, she said, never made any demand in Parliament for Telangana and did not even make a statement that Congress had not given the T State which they demanded. On the other hand, he took out a huge victory rally in Hyderabad with horses and camels. If the Congress cheated the people then why did he celebrate on such a large scale? She asked.

Vijayashanti said if TRS was so popular in the region, why did he go in for poll alliances with Congress in 2004 and then with TDP. Despite contesting 40 MLAs seats, the party could win only 17 Assembly and two MP seats with great difficulty. That is KCRs popularity, she added.

Ponguleti Sudhakar Reddy, a senior Congress Party leader said KCR should rethink on the issue of TRS party’s merger with Congress.

He said it was not correct to think that the entire Telangana related issues would keep encircling around KCR and his family members.

Rajya Sabha MP Palvai Govardhan Reddy said there was no need of TRS merger in Congress Party. He said KCR has an eye on the Chief Minister post; and for the same only he skipped merger.

Reacting to this diatribe, TRS leader Jupalli Krishna Rao slammed the Congress leaders, saying that if the ruling party felt that TRS was not a force to reckon with, why they craving for alliance or merger with it.