Congress puts up a rare display of its strength

Hyderabad: After a gap of many months, Congress leaders staged a successful agitation with Friday’s Chalo Assembly, with leaders from various places in the state taking part. Several leaders were either detained by the police on their way to the protest, or placed under house arrest.

With the 2019 elections widely being seen as a TRS vs Congress affair, the mood in the Opposition party is to grab every opportunity to corner the government. Mirroring this, leaders from various districts took up the Chalo Assembly as a prestige issue, and put on their fighting spirit after a long time.

Inside the Assembly, however, the Congress failed to stall the House proceedings despite staging a dharna at the podium and raising slogans. The government also took this as a prestige issue, and the House functioned through the din. The government did not want to suspend the Congress MLAs and not allow them to speak in the House.

Like on earlier occasions, there was no floor coordination between Opposition parties in stalling the House proceedings to discuss farming issues, as the Chalo Assembly call was given only by Congress and was supported by the rest of the Opposition. The Opposition participated in the Question Hour.

This was evident from Legislative Affairs minister T. Harish Rao’s reaction, who said, “Congress scored a self goal today. Congress became isolated in the House with other parties deciding to continue with Question Hour”. The normal practice of allowing Leader of the Opposition — Mr K. Jana Reddy — to intervene at any time was ignored.