BackRahul Gandhi to unveil 2019 election manifesto in Telangana on 1 June
Rahul Gandhi will unveil the party's manifesto for the 2019 assembly election in Telangana at a public meeting that will focus on the alleged failures of the ruling TRS
Premium
Hyderabad: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi will unveil the party’s manifesto for the 2019 assembly election in Telangana at a public meeting in the state on 1 June that will focus on the alleged failures of the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS).
The programme—‘Telangana Praja Garjana’ (people’s roar) – is expected to draw a crowd of about 200,000, said N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, president of the Telangana unit of the party. The public meeting will take place in Sangareddy district.
The Congress is seeking an early mover’s advantage by readying its manifesto two years ahead of the assembly election in a state that was carved out of neighbouring Andhra Pradesh in 2014. The party was defeated in both states in 2014.
Reddy said the public meeting will focus on the “three years of misrule" by TRS in Telangana and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the Centre.
At present, the Congress has just 13 members in the 119-member Telangana assembly. It won 21 seats in 2014, but eight members of the legislative assembly (MLAs) defected to the TRS some months later along with members of some other parties.
The ‘Telangana Praja Garjana’ will take place just nine days after BJP national president Amit Shah’s visit to Nalgonda district in the state. Shah’s three-day tour from 22 to 24 May was aimed at starting the party’s 2019 election campaign in Telangana.
Also Read: Amit Shah says BJP will win 2019 polls in Telangana
BJP leaders said Nalgonda had been chosen because it is economically backward, but Congress leaders claimed the district had been selected to primarily target their party, which is strong there.
“We have four MLAs in the old Nalgonda district (new districts were carved out of it last year after re-organization) at present, and the parliamentary seat was also won by G. Sukhender Reddy from Congress who later defected to the TRS. The BJP, which has five MLAs, selected Nalgonda as it wants to target our vote base, thinking that we are weak," said a Congress leader from Hyderabad, who didn’t wish to be named.
The Congress has no future in Telangana, BJP spokesperson Krishna Saagar Rao said.
“The BJP is not threatened by it because it has no aspirational value, unlike us who are offering voters development," he said.
Rao said the Congress had about 10 chief ministerial aspirants in the last election who failed to win their own constituencies.
“The fight (in 2019) is between the TRS and the BJP," Rao said.
Partially agreeing with Rao, Leo Augustine, civil rights lawyer and former general secretary of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), said the Congress could not get its act together in the last election.
“It won 24 % of the vote share, but got only 21 votes. However, there are high chances that the Congress will improve its vote share in 2019," he said.
Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed – it's all here, just a click away! Login Now!
