Fact Sheet: Go Left way, Naidu tells cadres!

At last, Telugu Desam president N Chandrababu Naidu has taken a leaf out of the Communists' book in launching agitations and win the people's support.

He realised that the Mudigonda incident has shaken the Congress edifice in the State and drew nation-wide attention, while there was little response to the hungama created by the TD legislators at Obulapuram mines, which nobody acknowledged. So, he has, of late, started taking lessons to the party cadres on how to launch agitations. "Unless there are arrests, lathi charge or cases it can not be called as an agitation," Chandrababu Naidu told his party workers at Chittoor on Tuesday.

He encouraged them to agitate over peoples problems and bring pressure on the officials to resolve the issues. He assured his support if cases are foisted against them or in case if they are arrested. He enquired about the strategy adopted by the left parties during the recent bhuporatam and expressed surprise over the failure of his party men, who are more than left party workers in numbers, to make an impact though the agitations.

Intellectuals come to TRS rescue again!

The pro-Telangana intellectuals, who have been keeping themselves away from the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) since the Karimnagar elections thanks to the highhanded behaviour of its president K Chandrasekhar Rao, have now come to the rescue of TRS again in the Singareni Collieries union elections.

To start with, revolutionary balladeer Gaddar has been touring the coal belt areas to ignite the Telangana sentiment among the workers again, He is taking out peace yathras and organising cultural programmes at various places to propagate Telangana feeling among the people of coal belt areas in general and Singareni workers in particular.

On the other hand the programmes and regular meetings organized by 'Telangana Vidyavanthula Vedika' also galvanized Singareni workers behind the separate Telangana state demand by creating awareness about the need of separate Telangana state. The people are being brainwashed by various organizations regarding importance of winning of Telangana Boggu Gani Karmika Sangham in the elections to protect Singareni from various forces.

The TRS now hopes to repeat the Karimanagar byelections show in the Singareni polls. It feels that recent road shows by Chandrashekar Rao in the Coal belt areas and campaign by cultural troops at mines further strengthen Telangana sentiment among the workers.

YSR plans to nip BC Front in the bud

With State intelligence authorities indicated to the government about an imminent impact of the newly-formed BC United Front on the Congress prospects in 2009 elections, Chief Minister Dr Y S Rajasekhar Reddy has immediately started measures to woo the BCs and is all set to announce a major package for them.

As a first step, the Chief Minister came out with a proposal for reservations to BCs in in promotional posts in the services of both State and Central Governments. He wrote a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to take legal and legislative initiatives in this regard to pave way for reservations to them. Pointing out that reservation to BCs at the entry level in Government services is not enough, he asked the Centre to amend the constitution to provide reservations to BCs even in promotions.

Citing reasons for his plea, Dr Reddy said people belonging to backward classes form a very substantial part of population of the State. Despite the fact that they possess most of the traditional skills and services, much remains to be done for their social and educational advancement, the Chief Minister wrote.

YSR's surprise letter indicates Congress attempts to ensure complete sway over the Backward Classes in the wake of polarisation of political forces, struggle for land and other issues. Naturally, he wants to pre-empt the BCs from forming a separate party that would be last nail in the Congress coffin.

Telangana Cong meet, a futile exercise

The Telangana Regional Congress Committee meeting, to be held on August 12, has virtually no issues to discuss, but for praising the initiatives taken by the Y S Rajasekhar Reddy government for the development of Telangana on all fronts.

The meeting is being convened under pressure from some Telangana MLAs, who are getting uneasy over the latest developments on Telangana front: the immense damage caused to the Congress party in Telangana after the Mudigonda firing incident, the rising discontent among the party cadres about lack of progress on Telangana State formation front, failure to implement GO 610 and so on. There is a fear among the Congress MLAs in Telangana that they might not get relected in the 2009 elections, if there is no major initiative from the government for Telangana.

However, Gandhi Bhavan sources say, there are no great expectations about the TRCC meeting. As usual, Digvijay Singh comes from Delhi, praises the Chief Minister and gives a call to the TRCC leaders to strengthen the hands of the Chief Minister. At the most, the TRCCC leaders would ask government to spend Rs 9500 crore generated through sale of lands in and around Hyderabad for the development of Telangana region only and should not be included in the State budget, sources said.