We lack crowd-puller: Telangana Congress netas to Rahul

HYDERABAD: The Congress needs fresh ideas, new blood and a leader who is a crowd-puller to win the hearts of voters and who is also financially sound with good oratory skills to beat chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and his TRS in Telangana. These were not findings of a private agency engaged by the high command to revive the party, but representations made by Congress MLAs, MLCs and senior leaders to AICC chief Rahul Gandhi.

At the first review meeting held at the Congress president’s residence in Delhi on Tuesday to assess the reasons for the debacle of the party in the December Assembly elections, several MLAs and leaders urged Rahul to go for a total revamp but did not specify if it should be done before or after Lok Sabha elections. Some MLAs felt AICC Telangana in-charge RC Khuntia and TPCC chief Uttam Kumar Reddy should be continued in their posts.

Congress MLAs and leaders told Rahul that Rythu Bandhu scheme money deposited 2-3 days before polling into bank accounts of farmers, welfare schemes of TRS, huge money spent by the ruling party, delay in finalising the alliance partners and seat-sharing deal had led to the debacle. They said TDP president and AP chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu was not the lone factor for the defeat of the Congress in the state.

One of the legislators from Rangareddy district told Rahul that contrary to the expectations, the TDP vote-bank had shifted in favour of TRS and not Congress. “The TDP leaders and cadre either joined the TRS or voted for it,” the MLA said.

Some MLAs said the party leadership should do away with the syle of having four working presidents, 10 vice-presidents and 30 general secretaries.