Political Diary

With barely a week left for GHMC poll D-Day, the Congress on Monday decided to give a collective push to the campaign and impress upon the electorate that it too is in the fray.

With the absence of a star campaigner reflecting strongly in its campaign so far, CM K Rosaiah marshalled together all leaders and ministers and practically made each one of them in-charge of a few divisions. He also asked them to bury their differences and concentrate on the poll campaigning.

Congress appeared to have woken up to the reality of its campaigning suddenly on Monday. AICC secretaries Praveen Davar, B S Krishnamurthy, deputed by the high command for the polls, convened a breakfast meet of all ministers at a hotel on Raj Bhavan road and took stock of the situation.

The matter was then discussed informally after the cabinet meet in the afternoon. Sources said Rosaiah virtually accepted the contention that the Congress campaign was going nowhere due to lack of coordination. Top party leaders including D Nagender, PCC president D Srinivas, Rajya Sabha MP K V P Ramachandra Rao, and all the ministers later met at the CM’s Ameerpet residence to discuss the situation.

According to sources, the ministers and leaders were told to aggressively campaign in the wards allotted to them. "They were told to undertake padayatras during the day and hold public meetings in the evening for the next few days," sources said.

Secretaries and joint secretaries of the state Congress were told to campaign in the wards and individual summons were sent to them to report to work immediately, sources said. Apparently, the message given by the AICC representatives was that Congress chief Sonia Gandhi was monitoring the efforts of all the leaders closely.

"This has immediately galvanised the CM, PCC chief and KVP into closing the ranks and putting a united effort as a poor showing will reflect on all of them," the source added.