Hyderabad: With an aim to galvanise the Congress’s rank and file ahead of the local bodies elections, Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy was planning to hold a public meeting at LB Stadium in Hyderabad on July 4, sources said. The event was being organised to mobilise support across all levels of the party and to prepare leaders and cadres for the elections to gram panchayats, mandal parishads, zilla parishads and municipalities, the sources said.
AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge is expected to be chief guest at the rally and will also attend the state Congress political affairs committee meeting scheduled at Gandhi Bhavan the same day with a focus on local bodies elections.
The initiative to hold the meeting comes against the backdrop of the Telangana High Court’s verdict on June 26, directing the state government to conduct elections to local bodies within three months. The ruling has shifted the Congress into election mode, and the party leadership, under Revanth Reddy, is keen to make a clean sweep of the local bodies.
Elections for mandal and zilla parishads, as well as municipalities, will be held on party symbols, while those for gram panchayats will be held on a non-party basis. Political parties back candidates even in the panchayat elections. Given this context, the Chief Minister has stressed the need to energise the party machinery at every level, from the villages upwards.
During discussions with senior TPCC leaders and ministers on Saturday, the CM finalised the plan for the July 4 meeting, party sources said. Invitations will be extended to leaders across all tiers of the party. More importantly, the Chief Minister has reportedly directed party leaders to prepare comprehensive documentation highlighting the achievements of the Congress government. This includes a department-wise list of welfare schemes and development programmes, which will be distributed to the attendees.
According to party sources, the Congress government has implemented 260 welfare and development initiatives across 28 departments since coming to power. The agriculture department leads with 29 schemes, followed by the departments of labour, employment, training and factories (26), social welfare (21), municipal administration (17) and energy (15).
Despite the government’s substantial welfare expenditure such as over Rs 1 lakh crore on farmers alone, and other flagship schemes such as free RTC bus travel for women and free electricity up to 200 units per household, free sanna biyyam scheme, the CM believes the Congress has failed to communicate these benefits effectively to the public. Revanth Reddy sees the upcoming meeting as a platform to rectify this and to launch an aggressive campaign across the state.
At the LB Stadium rally, the Chief Minister is expected to appeal to party workers to intensify outreach efforts, ensuring that people are made aware of the Congress government’s schemes and development works.
