Congress puts Meet Your Minister programme on hold in Telangana

The initiative, launched on September 24 last year as part of Praja Palana, aimed at facilitating people to meet Ministers and get their grievances addressed

HYDERABAD: In sharp contrast to Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy’s instructions to senior leaders to be more accessible to people, the Congress has put the ‘Meet Your Minister’ programme on hold since last few weeks.

Amidst much fanfare, the Congress launched the ‘Meet Your Minister’ at Gandhi Bhavan on September 24 last year. It was launched as part of its Praja Palana initiative facilitating people to meet Ministers and get their grievances addressed.

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After over 200 days since the programme was launched, it has been now kept on hold since the last few weeks for different reasons. Sources in the Gandhi Bhavan said most of the Ministers were busy with their schedules and were unable to provide time for the programme.

In addition to the government’s Praja Palana programme, the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) wanted to provide a platform for people, particularly party workers, to interact with Ministers and get their long-pending grievances addressed. Accordingly, the first such programme was conducted on September 24 last year with Health Minister Damodar Rajanarasimha from 11 am to 2 pm. It was decided to hold two such programmes a week with different Ministers.

Though the programme was conducted religiously for a few months, it has now been kept in the freezer.

With an eye on local body elections, the State leadership wanted to strengthen the party further by ensuring a bond with the leaders and workers, a senior leader from Gandhi Bhavan said. The other purpose was to campaign about the government’s welfare and development programmes among people, especially at the village and mandal level. Unfortunately, with different controversies cropping up and elections codes, the programme was kept on hold, the leader said.