TRS in battle mode for next Assembly elections

The TRS (now BRS) is switching to battle mode much ahead of the Assembly elections to be held next year, with a 365-day action plan drawn out.

Hyderabad: Donning warpaint, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (now Bharat Rashtra Samithi) is switching to battle mode much ahead of the Assembly elections to be held next year, with a 365-day action plan drawn out.

The declaration of a war against the BJP, and the statement from party president and Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao that there would be no early polls and most sitting MLAs would get tickets, which is akin to declaring candidates much in advance, has already put the Opposition in a quandary.

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Apart from countering the Opposition effectively, the party leadership is keen on making use of this timeframe to ensure that all welfare and development programmes initiated by the State government reach eligible beneficiaries.

The Chief Minister has prepared a multi-pronged strategy for party functionaries, each of them tasked with different activities. For the next 365 days, party legislators have been entrusted with the task of ensuring the implementation of the electoral promises in their respective constituencies. They were also assigned to reach out to every voter, especially families benefiting from the State government’s schemes. They were instructed to strictly remain stationed within their respective constituencies and to be accessible to their constituents unless there was a compulsion to visit Hyderabad or any other place.

“On average, at least one person from each household is benefiting from one State government scheme or the other. Within the next few weeks, legislators, in coordination with party district presidents, will prepare a list of in-charges who will be responsible to reconnect with 100 voters each. The idea is to plug any communication gap between the party and people. The MLA, in official capacity, will continue to address the issues,” a TRS general secretary told Telangana Today, after attending the party general body meeting on Tuesday.

Sources said the list of voter in-charges would be shared with the party headquarters where a massive data bank was being prepared for future coordination and communication purposes to effectively reach out to the people, especially the youth, on the development and welfare activities being implemented by the State government. Many young voters are unaware of the sacrifices and the fight undertaken by the TRS (BRS) as well as party supremo Chandrashekhar Rao during the Telangana movement. “Our ‘voter reach-out’ programme will ensure that we connect with them directly and effectively on development and welfare programmes,” sources said.

Further, party MLAs will interact with members of each community by hosting community meetings (Athmeeya Sammelans) and address their grievances, if any. The party leaders were instructed to ensure that party activists are not ignored. The Chief Minister, who assured party tickets to a majority of sitting MLAs for the third time, is also learnt to have promised to do justice for those working for the party. He is said to have explained the importance of continuity of sitting MLAs to bring implementation of various government schemes to a logical conclusion.

Meanwhile, the Chief Minister’s declaration that there would be no early polls and except for a few, all sitting MLAs would be retained, has sent opposition parties into a tizzy. By declaring the candidates nearly a year in advance, Chandrashekhar Rao has thrown an open challenge to them. Hence, party legislators were asked to ensure that they give strong counters to allegations by opposition parties against them on a regular basis. The MLAs have also been instructed to tour their constituencies and review various works at regular intervals.