In all the four states that Congress is going to face polls this year the brightest chances of grabbing power are in Telangana, and leaders should shed their differences if they want to capture power.
This was the crux of the message that All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary K.C. Venugopal sent to Congress leaders on Saturday while sharing his views and discussing party strategies at the Political Affairs Committee (PAC) meeting held at Gandhi Bhavan.
Mr. Venugopal personally told TPCC president A. Revanth Reddy and Nalgonda MP N. Uttam Kumar Reddy to forget their differences irrespective of the intensity of the allegations being levelled by each other. “No one from New Delhi will become Ministers or the Chief Minister but the leaders from Telangana will get power if you work hard and you have the opportunity to serve people” was what he told the meeting that was attended by all top leaders of the party.
Mr. Venugopal was said to have referred to similar differences in Karnataka which, with concerted effort by leaders, didn’t hamper party chances. Sharing power was a decision that can be taken later, he told the senior leaders.
Congress strategists were said to have asked Congress leaders to focus on land corruption in the BRS government. It was said the entire country was surprised with the kind of prices quoted by bidders in Kokapet auction and relating it to the kind of money that was being spent by people close to the BRS government. Where was the money coming from and who was benefiting would be the focus.
Congress strategy would revolve round this aspect and the message would be taken to the ground level linking Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao and his family to the unbelievable prices being quoted for land in Hyderabad, a senior Congress leader said, admitting that Mr. Venugopal had stressed this point to be taken to each and every voter in a coordinated campaign.
The situation in Telangana was similar to Karnataka where the Congress gained with the campaign focussing on corruption in the government and also individuals within the government. People were concerned about this kind of corruption, so similar campaign strategy would be worked out here as well.
‘Sonia the weapon’
Sonia Gandhi would be the best weapon that Telangana Congress would deploy this time and she would participate in one of the four public meetings to be held before the elections. Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge would address these meetings. Later, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah would also be roped in to send the social engineering message that Congress was working out this time.
