TRS sets up new committee to coordinate poll preparation

Hyderabad: The Telangana Rashtra Samiti has announced that it has set up a nine-member committee to coordinate its election preparedness and campaign for the upcoming civic body elections. The committee will immediately start working from Telangana Bhavan, the TRS party headquarters, till the completion of the elections, party working president and minister K.T. Rama Rao said on Sunday.

Rama Rao, who met with party leaders at Telangana Bhavan, said this central coordination committee will assist the local leaders in the various municipalities and municipal corporations where elections are scheduled for January 22.

The committee comprises party general secretary Palla Rajeswar Reddy, Hyderabad mayor Bonthu Rammohan, MLCs Seri Subhash Reddy, Srinivas Reddy, Naveen Rao, and TSIIC chairman Gyadari Balamallu, Civil Supplies Corporation chairman Mareddy Srinivas Reddy, party secretary Gattu Ramachandra Rao and Dande Vitthal.

Each of these members have been told to take charge of the party campaign in different districts, work along with senior party leaders and MLAs, and provide all necessary information to the party candidates. They have also been tasked with holding media conferences every day addressed by TRS leaders to counter campaigns by the opposition parties. “Special focus should be placed on using social media for the party campaign,”  Rama Rao told them.

Further, the committee members have been tasked with speaking with all the candidates who have filed their nominations from the TRS even when not being issued with the ‘B Form’ that makes a candidate an official nominee of the party. The goal is to ensure that TRS does not face any challenges from rebel candidates denied party nominations, an issue that the TRS has been grappling with ever since the announcement of the civic polls.

Rama Rao who met with some ministers, MLAs, MLCs and other party leaders, stressed that the party must work unitedly and carry the message of how the TRS government has provided special funds for Warangal, Khammam and Nizamabad municipal corporations.

“Our party should explain how setting up of the corporations has speeded up development. It should also be explained in other corporations’ limits that the government will do the same there too. The TRS must register victories in all the 10 municipal corporations. Every effort should be made to ensure this. And in Karimnagar and Nizamabad the TRS should explain how the BJP and Congress parties are working together with a secret understanding,” Rama Rao said.

TRS leaders ridicule BJP for fewer candidates

Ministers V. Srinivas Goud and Koppua Eshwar on Sunday ridiculed the BJP for allegedly not having enough candidates to contest the municipal elections. They alleged that the BJP leaders were in search of candidates to protect their prestige in the party. Addressing the media at Telangana Bhavan, the ministers said that those who had voted for the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections from the state were now repenting. “They would certainly vote against the BJP in the civic polls,” they said.

They said that the Huzurnagar byelection outcome had exposed the position of the BJP in the state. The BJP will stay that way in the next 20 years.

They alleged that the BJP and Congress were trying to give B forms for TRS rebels to allow them to contest the elections.

Despite Telangana state paying thousands of crores of tax to the Centre, the ministers alleged that the Centre was not allocating sufficient funds for the state’s development. Mr Eshwar dared BJP state president Dr K. Laxman to an open debate on the allocation of the funds to Telangana state by the Centre.

Mr Eshwar said the people of the state were noticing the development and welfare programmes taken up the state government and will certainly back the TRS in the municipal elections as they did in the zilla parishad elections.