DEVISING STRATEGY: APCC president D. Srinivas holding a meeting with leaders of Telangana region on the byelection issue at Gandhi Bhavan in Hyderabad on Sunday.
HYDERABAD: Armed with the ‘overwhelming' demand that the party should contest the byelections for the 12 Assembly seats in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee president D. Srinivas is leaving for New Delhi on Monday to apprise the Central leadership about the mood in the organisation.
He is said to have prepared a detailed report on the ground realities and also the party's readiness to face the poll challenge after an elaborate interaction with the Ministers, elected representatives and the district-level leaders of the 12 constituencies during the week.
Mr. Srinivas will meet All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretaries M. Veerappa Moily and Ahmed Patel to give the feedback.
If needed, he may stay back in Delhi to meet party president Sonia Gandhi and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Congress sources said. On Sunday, the APCC chief held wide-ranging discussions with leaders from Nizamabad, Medak and Warangal districts on the bypolls. Ministers J. Geeta Reddy, C. Damodar Rajanarasimha, V. Sunitha Laxma Reddy, Ponnala Lakshmaiah, P.Sudarshan Reddy and D. Sridhar Babu, besides MPs and MLAs, attended the meeting at Gandhi Bhavan.
Later, a majority of the party leaders laid stress on contesting the elections.
They reasoned that the party could prove its commitment to Telangana by joining the fray.
They dismissed the ‘threats' held out by the Joint Action Committee of political parties and the Telangana Rashtra Samiti and felt that it was better to ignore the demand by some seniors not to contest.
‘Unity mantra'
Mr. Srinivas asked the leaders to follow the ‘unity mantra' and show voters that there were no differences among them.
All ticket aspirants were asked to tour the constituencies in a bus and impress the voters in the region.
He later told reporters that the discussions whether the party would contest the by-elections or not only figured in the media.
APCC sources stated that although the high command was firm about the party contesting the polls, it wanted a feedback on the mood of the cadre.
“The meeting with leaders of 12 constituencies has certainly endorsed the opinion of the high command,” a senior APCC functionary told The Hindu.
A lot of background exercise had been done since April, when apolitical persons were engaged by the party to study the ground reality.
The ‘prajapatham' and ‘rythu sadassu' programmes were used to gauge the people's mood.
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