VV Balakrishna
First Published : 02 Sep 2009 03:19:00 AM IST
Last Updated : 02 Sep 2009 09:32:21 AM IST
HYDERABAD: Target Chittoor. The Congress is moving pawns to hoist its flag, the `tricolour’, on the `yellow fort’. Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy is targeting Chittoor district, which is considered to be the fiefdom of Telugu Desam president N Chandrababu Naidu.
Reddy vowed to send more number of Lok Sabha members to Delhi from the State to enable the Congress get absolute majority in the Lok Sabha in 2014.
He is also working on a strategy to ensure a huge majority for the Congress in the State Assembly in the next election. Towards this end, he has been concentrating on Chittoor, the home district of the TDP chief.
The chief minister has a two-pronged strategy to decimate the TDP in the district. First, he is focusing on development of the district. Recently he has secured two projects, a turbines and boilers manufacturing unit at Mannavaram and an international airport at Tirupati. Even TDP MLAs from Chittoor district complimented the chief minister for securing the sanction of the two big projects for the backward district. Second, he is making political moves. Several TDP leaders are being lured into the Congress.
In a major catch, he netted Telugu Mahila president RK Roja for the party.
According to sources, the Congress is also targeting other leaders.
Though Srikalahasti MLA Bojjala Gopala Krishna Reddy met the chief minister to congratulate him on bringing two big projects to the district, rumours are rife that he may join the Congress, his stout denials notwithstanding. The TDP, which was routed in coastal Andhra in the Assembly election, managed to win six of the 14 Assembly seats from Chittoor district.
It is a force to reckon with in the district and the Congress is trying hard to minimise its rival’s influence in the district.
The Congress was power in the State only for ten years during the 27-year period since the founding of the TDP in 1982.
“As we were in the Opposition for a long time, we did not focus our attention on Chittoor district. Nor in the past five years during my stint as chief minister,’’ admits Reddy.
The Congress tried to reduce the margin of the TDP chief ’s victory in Kuppam in the recent election and succeeded to some extent. ``With the support base in Kuppam the TDP was able to win the Chittoor Lok Sabha seat. had its majority in Kuppam been reduced, the Congress would have won the Chittoor Lok Sabha seat,’’ Reddy told reporters recently.
Sensing his bete noire’s game-plan, Naidu had alleged prior to the elections that the Congress was replicating Pulivendula-mark politics in Kuppam.
The visibly shaken former chief minister campaigned for the first time for himself in his constituency.
Till then he had never campaigned in the four successive elections he fought in Kuppam. Taking no chances, he even marshalled the film glamour of Balakrishna and the charm of his young son Lokesh to tilt the scales in his favour
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