AICC President to visit Telangana

AICC President Rahul Gandhi will pay his first visit to Telangana after party’s humiliating defeat in the Assembly election last December by addressing a public meeting at Pahadisharief in Chevella Lok Sabha constituency on the city outskirts on March 9.

The close to four-hour-long brief visit will see Mr. Gandhi arriving from Hubballi in Karnataka and making his way to a sprawling ground near Pahadisharief to address the public meeting where he is expected to speak about the party’s ambitious Minimum Income Guarantee scheme aimed at luring the electorate during the parliamentary elections.

Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy and CLP leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka and others met at Gandhi Bhavan on Tuesday evening to discuss the arrangements for Mr. Gandhi’s visit. AICC in-charge of Telangana R.C.Khuntia chaired the meeting while AICC secretary Bosu Raju also attended.Party’s leaders hope that the visit may bolster the sagging morale of the party’s rank and file after the poll debacle and also the recent developments where in two Congress MLAs decided to quit the party and join the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi.

A senior TPCC functionary said the audience would primarily be the booth and mandal level office bearers. “The idea is to explain to these grassroots workers the proposed Minimum Income Guarantee scheme. If we are able to take the idea to the voters, it is certainly going to benefit us. We will explain that the Congress government, if voted to power, would spend ? 3-lakh crore on the scheme,” the leader remarked.

The idea of highlighting the proposed scheme, which it feels could be party’s trump card in the election campaign to give some sort of ‘bharosa’ (faith) to the people, leaders noted.

The party leaders undeterred by the recent defections and all around disappointment among the cadres hopes to make Mr. Gandhi’s visit a notable one. The last meeting was the largely attended rally at Medchal ahead of the Assembly elections which was addressed by Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.

TPCC leaders said senior leaders from over a dozen Assembly constituencies abutting the Twin Cities have been asked to mobilise party workers for the meeting. Mr. Gandhi will issue laminated ID cards to select 30 booth-level leaders and subsequently all the booth-level leaders will get such cards shortly.