Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee Chief Ponnala Lakshmaiah today resolved to fight it alone in future elections of GHMC and avoid MIM to take along with to contest. It was also decided to conduct membership drive and proposed to set up a cell on grievances of people as well as party workers.
The meeting felt that lack of coordination to some extent among the leaders and workers led to defeat in the general elections. Now that the GHMC elections are fast nearing, the Congress has to gear up to fight it alone. A decision in this regard will be taken only after taking the matter to the notice of the party high command. The Congress party is strong in Hyderabad and Secunderabad parliamentary segments, Lakshmaiah felt.
In a meeting at Gandhi Bhavan, Ponnala discussed various issues relating to poll debacle, reasons for defeat, people’s response towards Congress despite conceding Statehood to Telangana, poor publicity on statehood and so on. Also other issues that were prominently figured in the discussion include lack of coordination among leaders and party men, taking up the Telangana statehood to every door step, failure to spread welfare schemes and development programs taken up by the Government and party’s rout as then CM N Kiran Kumar Reddy defied the high command for according statehood to Telangana.
Despite these, the party is strong in Hyderabad segment as the leaders are evincing keen interest in contesting the GHMC elections alone. Since most of the leaders are of the same opinion to go it alone and avoid alliance with that of the MIM, Lakshmaiah is planning to rope in the aspirants loyal to the party.
In a communiqué, Ponnala stated he is happy with the leaders for their single opinion on elections. Another round of review will be conducted before coming to a conclusion in this regard, he said. Most of the leaders are not unhappy that despite party’s failure, coming forward in unison to take on the elections without any truck with MIM. The Congress will fight for the cause of the people, he maintained.
Those who attended the meeting include DCC president and former minister Danam Nagender, MLCs Shabbir Ali, Prabhakar Rao, MP MA Khan, former MP Anjan Kumar Yadav, Jayasudha, P Lakshman Goud, B Karthika Reddy, G Rajkumar, D Rambabu, Dr Vinay Kumar and Vinod Kumar. (NSS)
