Hyderabad, April 11: After long deliberation, the Congress has finalised its tactics for the Kadapa Lok Sabha and Pulivendula Assembly byelections: Compete for the YSR vote.
The party will try to project the former chief minister as a great Congress leader who owed much to Sonia Gandhi.
The late YSR’s speeches will be played liberally at campaign rallies and his quotes eulogising the Congress president will be hyped up.
This way, the Congress hopes to vie for a claim to the YSR legacy and prevent its appropriation by his son, Jagan Mohan Reddy, who is in the fray in Kadapa LS.
The party’s campaigners in the two bypolls have been instructed to declare that YSR was their leader, and Sonia Gandhi was his unquestioned leader.
This apart, the party does not want to take any chances in the fight for Kadapa Lok Sabha.
It has appointed seven ministers for each of the Assembly segments in the constituency. In addition, the party has appointed one MLA for each mandal in the constituency.
Chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy at a meeting with PCC president D Srinivas decided to take up the election as a prestige issue and put up a good performance to see that the Congress can do well without Jagan Mohan Reddy.
The chief minister, it is learnt, asked the seven ministers to liberally use YSR’s photo in banners and flexis while canvassing.
The party would also focus on the welfare programmes that the late chief minister introduced during his tenure.
Speaking to mediapersons later, one of the seven samurai ministers (see graphic) Botsa Satyanarayana said the party leaders would ask voters to vote Congress to fulfill the aspirations of late YSR. It would be their ‘collective responsibility’ in ensuring victory for the Congress, he said.
–Agencies