Battered Cong top brass keeps off civic poll drive

*** The district units get almost no support from the TPCC

Hyderabad: With barely a week left for elections to the Warangal and Khammam Municipal Corporations, the top brass of Telangana
Congress has gone into hibernation. Let down by the ‘death blow’ suffered by the party in the recently concluded Narayankhed bypoll and
the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation(GHMC) elections, the party senior leaders are shying away from participating in the ongoing
poll campaign.

Although the party’s Warangal and Khammam district units planned to compete with the ruling the ruling TRS, which has already
launched high decibel campaign, the senior leaders of the party including TPCC President N Uttam Kumar Reddy, CLP leader K Jana Reddy
and opposition leader in Telangana Legislative Council Mohd Ali Shabbir informed district leaders that they would not be available for
electioneering.

Seniors like Damodar Raja Narasimha, D Sridhar Babu, D K Aruna, J Geeta Reddy, K R Suresh Reddy, Komatireddy Venkat Reddy, G
Vivek, T Jeevan Reddy and MPs G Sukhendar Reddy and N Yellaiah too are staying away from election preparations due to “some
personal reasons”.

Apart from party in-charges appointed in the poll-bound corporations, the district party units have made representations to TPCC to
depute senior leaders belonging to different communities during the campaign to woo voters from the respective sections. But, there is
little response from the party so far, a senior leader from Warangal told The Hans

India. Since former TPCC president P Lakshmaiah hails from Warangal and TPCC working president Mall Bhatti Vikramarka from
Khammam, both the leaders have no option of shirking away from their responsibility in both the corporations. Another senior leader
Sarve Satyanarayana, who lost the recently held Warangal Lok Sabha by-election, agreed to join the campaign. His schedule, however, is
yet to be finalised.

Some senior leaders informed the district units that they were pre-occupied while others said they were not interested in joining the
campaign following the continuous drubbing the party has experienced in the recent past.

The only option left for the party is that the district units would have to take responsibility for the election campaign. Several leaders said
that the district units were feeling the burden pool resources and arrange logistical support for the local body elections on their own. The
TPCC is not giving any support, the leader added.

Patan Afzal Babu