Hyderabad: The Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee is gearing up for the ensuing local body elections in the state. The TPCC has decided to follow the ‘select and elect’ policy to select candidates for the zilla parishad territorial constituency member (ZPTC) and mandal parishad territorial member (MPTC) elections. The selection has been handed over to the local leadership.
At a meeting of senior leaders at Gandhi Bhavan on Friday, it was decided that the selection of ZPTC and MPTC candidates will be handed over to mandal Congress committee presidents and party in-charges of Assembly constituencies. Where these officials are not available, the district Congress committees or the TPCC will step in. ZP chairperson candidates will be selected by the TPCC.
TPCC president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, AICC general secretary and Telangana state affairs in-charge R.C. Khuntia met on Friday with party senior leaders party senior leaders Ponnala Lakshmaiah, Shabbir Ali, Mohd Azharuddin, Damodar Rajanarasimha, G. Chinna Reddy, Challa Vamsichand Reddy, Konda Vishweshwar Reddy, Kusuma Kumar and others.
After the debacle in the Assembly elections, Congress supporters have won in good numbers in the gram panchayat elections though the state-level Congress leadership was not involved and local party leaders selected the sarpanch candidates. Keeping this in view, the TPCC has decided to follow the ‘select and elect’ policy.
Gram panchayat elections were held on a non-party basis but the ZPTC and MPTC elections will be held on a party basis. Mr Uttam Kumar Reddy asked party leaders and cadre to regard the local body elections as prestigious. He directed mandal Congress presidents to hold committee meetings before April 15 and get ready with the list of party candidates.
In the meeting, Congress leaders also discussed the voting trends in the Lok Sabha elections. Mr Khuntia said that compared to the Assembly elections the party had performed better in the Lok Sabha polls. He said that the Congress had winning chances in six to seven LS constituencies. Mr Khuntia said people had voted against the TRS and Muslims and tribals have voted for the Congress.
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