Congress' bus to start from Chevella

Hyderabad: The main opposition party, the Congress, is all set to revive the ‘Chevella sentiment’ for the coming elections. It will be hitting the road through a ‘bus yatra’ starting from Monday. It was late YS Rajasekhar Reddy who started his historic padayatra in 2003 from Chevella, a small town located in Rangareddy district, 40 kms from the capital. Later his election campaign was started from the same place and it rode the Congress party to power in 2004. 

In 2009, Rajasekhar Reddy kick-started his election campaign from the same place and reta-ined his seat for the second time. PCC President N. Uttam Kumar Reddy has now decided to start the bus yatra from the same place on Monday. 

The bus yatra will cover all the 119 Assembly segments in the State. There might be a few days’ gap in between due to the Assembly session. Accor-ding to Mr Uttam Kumar Reddy, the Congress bus yatra is bound to create ripples amongst the ruling TRS.

He added that he was confident about the Congress coming back to power in 2019. He also said the ensuing Budget session would be the last such occasion for the CM  as the next Budget would be presented by the freshly elected Congress government. The Congress lauded itself for the dream of Telangana statehood being realised in 2014.

However, it has miserably failed to convert the achievement into votes and lost power. One of the major factors for the Congress debacle was the fact that over a dozen Chief Ministerial aspirants spoiled the party’s chances by backstabbing each other.

There are major differences between situation prevalent during the time of the late YS Rajasekhar Reddy then and Uttam Kumar Reddy now. YSR had emerged as the tall and undisputed leader of the Congress party in 2004 with his padayatra. But in the case of Mr Uttam Kumar Reddy, he is still trying to establish his leadership in the party with his self-projection as the Chief Ministerial candidate in the next elections.

Mr Uttam Kumar Reddy recently stated that he and his wife Padmavati will quit politics permanently if the Congress did not come to power. For the Bus Yatra, Mr Uttam Kumar Reddy has personally invited all the senior leaders in the party to join the bus yatra and make this a huge success.

However, owing to internal differences, it remains to be seen just how many seniors actually turn up for the yatra which is aimed at projecting that the Congress is united and can therefore happily take on the challenge of winning the next election.