Hyderabad, April 11: The Congress has sounded the bugle for the by-elections to Kadapa parliamentary constituency and Pulivendula Assembly segment by drafting over a dozen Ministers to campaign for its candidates.
Though lagging behind the YSR Congress Party candidate, Y. S. Jaganmohan Reddy, and the TDP nominee, M. V. Mysoora Reddy, who have already begun their campaign, the Congress leaders finally got their act together by drafting 10 Ministers as in-charges for seven segments in Kadapa parliamentary constituency.
This is in addition to three Ministers hailing from the district, including D. L. Ravindra Reddy and Y. S. Vivekananda Reddy, who are candidates for Kadapa and Pulivendula seats.
In-charges named
The constituency in-charges named on Sunday are Anam Ramanarayana Reddy and Sake Sailajanath (Pulivendula), N. Raghuveera Reddy (Kamalapuram), Maheedhar Reddy (Badvel), Kanna Lakshminarayana (Kadapa), T.G.Venkatesh (Prodattur), Botcha Satyanarayana and Erasu Pratap Reddy (Jammalamadugu) and Dharmana Prasada Rao and Mopidevi Venkataramana (Mydukur).
Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy and APCC president D. Srinivas held elaborate discussions with the Ministers to chalk out the party’s strategy and finalise these names. The meeting reportedly decided to go all out to highlight the contribution of late Y.S. Rajasekara Reddy and avoid criticising him. The former Chief Minister’s loyalty to the AICC president, Sonia Gandhi, would be used to counter the campaign unleashed by Mr. Jaganmohan Reddy against her.
The party plans to play CDs containing YSR’s speeches praising Ms. Gandhi’s leadership.
Keeping an eye on the minority vote bank, the leaders felt that the AICC general secretary, Ghulam Nabi Azad, should be invited to address election meetings. Former Minister Md. Ali Shabbir and former Legislative Council Deputy Chairman Md. Jani have been asked to extensively tour places where the minority population was sizable.
Similarly, attention would be paid to woo different communities by roping in legislators belonging to that caste.
-Agencies