By IANS
Hyderabad : The ruling Congress in Andhra Pradesh Saturday reviewed the party’s preparedness to face the eventuality of mid-term elections to the Lok Sabha in the wake of the Left’s tough posture over the Indo-US civil nuclear deal.
The Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) and the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) held a joint meeting to discuss the issue here.
The Congress central leadership has reportedly sounded the state unit about the developments at the central government against the backdrop of the Left parties stance on the Indo-US civil nuclear deal.
The meeting was attended by party’s central leader Iqbal Singh, Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, party’s state unit president K. Keshava Rao, central ministers from the state, party MPs, legislators and other state leaders.
Keshava Rao has already gone on record to say that the party should be prepared for mid-term general elections.
Since Andhra Pradesh sent the largest number of Congress MPs to the Lok Sabha last time, the central leadership is understood to have advised the state unit to be especially vigilant.
Rajasekhara Reddy, who had a meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi in Delhi on Friday, asked the party cadre to be ready for polls, whenever they are held.
In the 2004 elections, the Congress had bagged 29 out of 42 Lok Sabha seats from the state while its allies got 6.
With the Left parties’ ‘bhuporatam’ or agitation for land distribution among the poor posing a big challenge to the party, the joint meeting of PCC and CLP urged the party workers to counter it with the ‘Indiramma’ housing scheme.
As the Left parties are gearing up to launch the second phase of the land agitation on Aug 21, the ruling party advised its workers to go to people and explain the development and welfare programmes taken up during the last three years.
The meeting noted with concern that the Left-supported land agitation was enjoying popular support and it was decided to expedite the housing scheme to woo the poor in the run up to the polls. The government plans to construct seven million houses for the poor of which one million have already been constructed.
The meeting discussed the modalities of the second phase of the scheme to be launched by Sonia Gandhi on Sep 1. It has decided to constitute village-wise party teams to enrol beneficiaries under the scheme.