BRS hits the road running in Aurangabad’s villages

The Bharat Rashtra Samithi, buoyed by the overwhelming response to its first two public meetings in Maharashtra, is now intensifying its activities in Aurangabad

Hyderabad: There is a festive atmosphere in the villages of Aurangabad. From Monday, one of the common sights in areas like Aurangabad East, West, Vaijapur, Kannad and Gangapur is children running behind vehicles that are decked up with huge LED screens and pink posters.

As the vehicle comes to a halt in the middle of the village, there are crowds immediately gathering around it, and as visuals, accompanied by narrations in Marathi and Hindi, start streaming on the large screens, they watch in awe the transformation that has been happening in their neighbouring State.

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As they start discussing what they see on the screen, from the lush green paddy fields to reservoirs brimming with water and happy faces of farmers, people accompanying the vehicle distribute pamphlets and tell them how one government is making a difference in Telangana.

The Bharat Rashtra Samithi, buoyed by the overwhelming response to its first two public meetings in Maharashtra, is now intensifying its activities in Aurangabad, where party President and Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao is slated to address a public meeting in a week’s time.

And instead of a social media blitzkrieg, the BRS think tank has chosen the good old way of communicating with the public and to showcase the Telangana model of governance. Open top vehicles, pamphlets, screenings of Telangana’s development in village squares, interactions in the vernacular tongue are among the modes, which according to the leaders masterminding the campaign, are striking a chord with the local populace.

Seven vehicles screening videos of Telangana’s different success stories and achievements, all with narrations and sub-titles in Marathi, were on Monday flagged off by Armoor MLA A. Jeevan Reddy, Zaheerabad MP BB Patil and other BRS Maharashtra leaders.

These vehicles are traversing through the lanes and bylanes of different constituencies in Chhatrapathi Sambhaji Nagar, as Aurangabad is now known as. With villagers and children cheering and gathering around these vehicles the moment they reach their villages, the BRS leaders are happy with the response.

BRS Maharashtra Kisan Samithi president Manik Kadam, former MLA Shankar Anna Dhondge along with Jeevan Reddy, BB Patil and others are also going around with the vehicles, explaining the significance of each of Telangana’s welfare and development programme.

“About 450 schemes and programmes are being showcased before the people of Maharashtra and these campaign vehicles will visit every village,” Jeevan Reddy said, adding that party workers were also going door to door and inviting them for the BRS meetings to be held in their villages.

Though the campaign as of now is focusing on the April 24 meeting, the larger scheme of things has the presence of the BRS as a force to reckon with during the forthcoming local body elections. Already, the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi alliance of Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray), NCP and the Congress have launched their campaigns for the local body elections to be held later this year in Maharashtra. Coincidentally, the MVA campaign took off from Aurangabad a few days ago.

With BRS already registered with the Election Commission in Maharashtra and Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao declaring that the party would contest in all the local body elections, leaders are working hard to ensure that the BRS flag is hoisted in every Zilla Parishad.

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