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Buoyed by the party’s Karnataka election victory, the Congress in Telangana is stepping up its attempts to take on the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) led by K Chandrashekar Rao or KCR in the upcoming Assembly elections with party posters coming up across the state pledging various sops to voters – ranging from an LPG cylinder for Rs 500 to increased pension and financial aid for construction of houses. The Congress had put up similar posters as part of its successful campaign in the May Karnataka Assembly polls.
With the Telangana Congress rank and file enthused by the party’s poll prospects, the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) has been flooded with over 1,000 applications from the party ticket aspirants for the state’s 119 Assembly seats. Amidst intense lobbying for tickets, the TPCC election panel, which is in a dilemma now, has sent these long lists to the All India Congress Committee (AICC) to consider them as part of its process for selection of the candidates.
Congress sources said there are several aspirants from other parties too as they have either been denied a ticket or do not expect it. The BRS’s sitting MLA from Khanapur, Rekha Ajmeera, who has been dropped this time by her party, has also applied for a Congress ticket.
The maximum number of applications which the TPCC has received is from the constituencies where the party nominees won in the 2018 Assembly polls but defected to the BRS subsequently, especially from the Khammam region. The Congress had won 19 seats in 2018, but 13 of its MLAs had later defected to the BRS.
The TPCC’s senior leader and its Political Affairs Committee convener Mohammed Ali Shabbir said that as the prospects of the Congress performing well in the elections have “brightened”, many candidates were trying their luck for tickets. “For some constituencies we have received over 30 applications. There is a lot of anti-incumbency and BRS candidates can be defeated, that is why the rush of aspirants,” he claimed.
Several Congress aspirants have printed posters promising the schemes that would be implemented in the event of the party’s victory, which include free public transport for women, financial assistance to jobless youths, subsidised LPG, increased pension of Rs 4,000 per month, and Rs 5 lakh aid for building of a house, among other sops.
Some Congress leaders have put up posters listing the “Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) Declaration”, released by Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge recently, which is a set of the party’s 12 promises for the welfare and development of the SCs and the STs. Some posters have listed the welfare schemes the Congress has lined up for Backward Classes (BCs), Muslims and Christians. All the posters have pictures of Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi, and other Congress leaders, including late Y S Rajashekara Reddy, former CM of the undivided Andhra Pradesh.
“The schemes that Congress has announced to implement if it comes to power in Telangana are being discussed a lot by the public. I think it will help a number of candidates to win,” said Congress activist Raghunath Yadav, who has applied for a ticket to the TPCC.
He said that the benefits promised to the unemployed youth, BCs, SCs and STs, and minorities have caught the imagination of the people. On May 8, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi announced the “Youth Declaration” at a public meeting in the state. She said that if the Congress forms the government in Telangana, it would provide interest-free loans of up to Rs 10 lakhs to jobless youths to start businesses, electric scooters to students, besides giving an unemployment allowance of Rs 4,000.
The SCs, STs Declaration promises to increase the SCs quota to 18 per cent and the STs quota to 12 per cent on the basis of their population; financial assistance of Rs 12 lakh to the SCs and STs families; allotment of plots and Rs 6 lakh for home construction to each houseless SCs/STs family; and scholarships and financial grants to SCs/STs students. On the lines of the SCs, STs Declaration, the TPCC is currently working on a “Minorities Declaration”, which will promise a slew of welfare benefits and incentives to the minority communities like Muslims and Christians.
