Congress flag.
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The Congress party is bringing its winning ‘guarantees’ formula to poll-bound Telangana. It is widely believed that the announcement of such guarantees fetched Congress a historic win in Karnataka a few months ago, trouncing the incumbent BJP government.
Taking a leaf out of this successful formula, party top leader Sonia Gandhi will announce similar six guarantees at the ‘Vijaya Bheri’ public meeting scheduled on September 17 in Hyderabad that will form the main basis of the party’s poll manifesto for Telangana.
Polls for the 119-seat Telangana Assembly are slated for December, even as notification from the poll authorities is expected in the coming days.
However, party insiders pointed out that the six guarantees that will be announced for Telangana will be different from those for Karnataka.
‘Core concept same’
“The core ‘guarantees’ concept that is providing strong assurance to people will remain the same, but the schemes will be Telangana-specific with a customised approach as per the local needs,” a senior party functionary of the Telangana Congress told DH.
Sources in the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) told DH, that three of the six guarantees that Sonia Gandhi is going to announce are Rs 3,000 for women from the BPL category, an LPG cylinder for Rs 500, and Rs 5 lakh aid for affordable house construction.
The Vijaya Bheri meeting is expected to be one of the largest political rallies in India and it would witness the presence of the entire top echelon of the Congress party, including Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, AICC President Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress Chief Ministers and all senior leaders.
“Smt Sonia Gandhi Ji has always honoured her commitments, as it was evident when she promised the people of Telangana statehood and subsequently fulfilled it. The Congress party firmly believes in honouring its promises, and the five guarantees presented during the meeting will be no exception,” said Nalgonda MP, Capt N Uttam Kumar Reddy while confirming the announcement of five guarantees.
While the schemes are different from Karnataka, what Congress poll managers are looking at is the messaging.
The ‘six guarantees’ messaging would definitely find a connection with the Telangana electorate, Congress leaders believe.
“We will announce six guarantees for Telangana at the Vijaya Bheri meeting. Within two months of coming to power in Karnataka, the Congress government had implemented the five guarantees promised during the polls despite hurdles created by the BJP led Centre. With such a commitment, we will announce six guarantees for the Telangana public,” senior Congress leader, Jairam Ramesh told reporters on Friday.
Telangana sentiment
“It’s all about ‘welfare state’. In Telangana, Congress can bank on two major issues: one, ‘Telangana sentiment, akin to granting statehood to Telangana, and two, the implementation of welfare schemes,” political analyst Telakapalli Ravi told DH.
“As far as the Telangana sentiment is concerned, in the past few years, BRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao was successful to an extent to discredit Congress' role in Telangana statehood. Now, Congress has no choice but to heavily bank upon welfare schemes toattract the voters. Even on the welfare side, the current BRS government has been implementing many schemes. And to outdo it, Congress will have to bring in more schemes. And obviously, it might have chosen this guarantees formula that had helped it wrest Karnataka,” Ravi added.
To take these six guarantees to the public, Congress has also planned several campaigns across Telangana from September 18 onwards.
On September 17, the Congress has set a target to mobilise a crowd of at least 10 lakh to participate in Vijaya Bheri-public meeting planned at Thukkuguda in Hyderabad.
To ensure the success of the Vijaya Bheri public meeting, the Congress party has been conducting preparatory meetings with cadres in all constituencies.
PCC Chief A Revanth Reddy personally participated in a preparatory meeting with the party leaders in Warangal, and CLP leader Bhatti Vikramarka participated in such a meeting in Khammam recently. Other senior leaders are also holding preparatory meetings in their respective areas.
The Congress party has appointed six committees to organise CWC meeting on September 16 and Vijaya Bheri public meeting on September 17. It has also assigned constituency-wise coordinators for the programmes. National leaders of the Congress party will address the Vijaya Bheri public meeting.
Farmers have voluntarily provided land for the Congress party's public meeting in Thukkuguda.
On September 18, prominent Congress party leaders will visit 119 constituencies and engage in door-to-door distribution of Congress guarantees, as well as a ‘charge sheet’ against the BRS government.