Political Leaders Busy with Supply of Free Gifts Before Declaration of Election Code

ADILABAD: Political leaders are busy with distribution of free gifts to the people in their constituencies amid hints that the assembly poll notification may be issued for TS in the first week of October.

Election code will come into force with immediate effect after the issue of notification. Political parties and leaders can’t announce favours or distribute gifts once the election code is in force. A member of the Election Commission may visit the state for three days from Oct 5 and the notification may be issued on Oct 8.      

Congress leaders distributed Bathukamma saris to women in the Mancherial assembly constituency and pressure cookers in the Adilabad assembly constituency.

The Premsagar Rao couple have been distributing the PSR Bathukamma saris to women for the last six years under the banner of the late Kokkirala Raghupathi Rao charitable trust. This year, they are distributing one lakh Bathukamma saris.     

Meanwhile, NRI Kandi Srinivas who recently joined the Congress from the BJP, began the distribution of pressure cookers a few days ago.

Srinivas Reddy’s opponents say that the distribution of cookers was intended to gain publicity and influence the surveys taken up by various committees of the Congress party.

Collecting Aadhar and phone numbers from women or family details for getting cookers has become controversial and doubts are raised whether the collected Aadhar and phone number details may be misused by any anyone. However, Srinivas Reddy is undeterred by such arguments and is continuing the distribution of free gifts.  

Leaders of all major political parties took special interest this time to make donations for the Ganesh Pandals. Some of the Congress leaders are giving donations online by using Mobile Apps. Some leaders even donated the Ganesh idols for the installation.

Congress leader Sridhar Babu of Mancherial said they have speeded up the distribution of ‘PSR Bathukamma saris’ as the election code might come into force anytime now. The distribution of Bathukamma Saris is difficult this time for fear of the election code. Otherwise, the distribution should continue for a month.