Congress to put up tough fight

Hyderabad: The Congress party has resolved to strengthen the party to put up a stiff fight in the upcoming Municipal elections in the State. The party is determined to face challenge from the TRS and BJP squarely.

The decision was taken at the meeting of the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) office-bearers, DCC presidents and heads of frontal organisations held at Nagarjuna Sagar on Saturday.

The meeting discussed various issues like construction of new buildings for Secretariat and Assembly, besides what the party called corruption in Kaleshwaram project and others.

Senior leaders of the party V Hanumantha Rao, Ponnala Laxmaiah, Vijayasanthi, Geetha Reddy, Renuka Chowdary, S Jaipal Reddy, Sampath, and a few others skipped the meeting.

There was a tiff between MLA T Jagga Reddy and party leader M Ranga Reddy. When Jagga Reddy was speaking, Ranga Reddy intervened in the debate. It made Jagga Reddy angry and said Ranga Reddy was not aware of ground realities.

It was decided at the meeting to organise a visit of senior party leaders to the Secretariat to examine the issue to demolition of the buildings and find out how old the buildings, which are billed to demolished, are.

Lok Sabha member A Revanth Reddy said at the meeting that there is no use in holding press conferences at Gandhi Bhavan. He stressed the need to organise campaign to expose the government by taking up issues being faced by the people.

AICC general secretary and Telangana Congress in-charge R C Khuntia, Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president and Nalgonda Lok Sabha N Uttam Kumar Reddy, MPs Komatireddy Venkatreddy and A Revanth Reddy, AICC secretaries Bose Raju, Saleem Ahmed and Srinivasan Krisnana, former Leader of Opposition K Jana Reddy and Mohammed Ali Shabbir, working presidents Ponnam Prabhakar and Kusum Kumar, MLAs Jagga Reddy, Sridhar Babu and Seethakka, MLC T Jeevan Reddy and other senior leaders participated in the meeting.

Addressing the meeting, Uttam Kumar Reddy said the preparations for municipal polls would be taken up on a war- footing. He said formation of committees for newly created districts and Nagar Panchayats should be completed immediately. Committees should be formed for all municipalities.

He said meetings would be held at all DCCs on July 1 to 4 to discuss and finalise the agenda for municipal polls. Further, the DCCs would organise meetings in every municipality every day from July 5 to 10.

He directed the DCC presidents to conduct workers' convention at various levels and focus on organisational building.

Uttam Kumar Reddy said that the Congress party would follow 'Select and Elect' policy to pick candidates for the municipal elections with local MPs and MLAs or contested candidates and DCC presidents playing a crucial role.

The TPCC chief also asked the DCC presidents to approach District Collectors for allotment of land for DCC offices.

Commenting on the State Government's decision to construct new secretariat and Assembly buildings, Uttam Kumar Reddy described the move as waste of public money.

He said the Congress party would soon finalise the mode of agitation against it. He also condemned the harassment of Congress workers by police and warned of agitation if it continued.

The Congress party has also decided to come up with a status paper on Kaleshwaram project. He said that the Kaleshwaram project was not yet completed, but it was inaugurated only to mislead the people. He said that they were not against the project but against the corruption.

Khuntia, in his speech, said that the Congress party would soon launch membership drive before the municipal polls. He said although the Congress membership drive was not being taken up in other States, it would be organised in Telangana State as TRS and BJP have taken up membership drive.

The Congress leaders also passed a unanimous resolution requesting Rahul Gandhi to withdraw his resignation and continues as AICC president.