Congress Wants Ballot Papers In Panchayat Elections

Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president N Uttam Kumar Reddy on Sunday instructed the party workers to gear up for the upcoming panchayat elections in the state.

Addressing a meeting of senior leaders at Gandhi Bhavan on Sunday, Reddy said that the panchayat elections would be highly crucial as they preceded the general elections.

All Congress workers and leaders should therefore work proactively to strengthen the party at the booth levels, he said.

"As a primary step towards this, party members must actively participate in the voters' enrolment drive being conducted by the Election Commission of India," the TPCC chief said.

He directed the Congress leaders to cross-check the electoral rolls and take measures to rectify any mistakes found.

A committee headed by former MLA Marri Shashidhar Reddy, and comprising senior leaders including Kamalakar Rao, Shyama Mohan and G Niranjan, was constituted to deal with the issues pertaining to the electoral rolls.

Reddy also informed the party men that AICC Vice-President Rahul Gandhi had directed all the state units to strengthen the party's presence on the social media.

Therefore, Reddy said, 50,000 social media coordinators would be appointed across Telangana.

The TPCC chief said that WhatsApp groups would be created for all the 31,656 polling booths in Telangana, and other social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube would be used extensively to expose the failures of the TRS government.

Expressing concern over the reports of EVM tampering in the recently held local body elections in Uttar Pradesh, Reddy demanded that the panchayat elections be held only through ballot papers.

He said that the TPCC would pass a resolution in this regard soon.

Reddy also urged the party members to celebrate Congress president Sonia Gandhi's birthday on December 9 as "Kruthagnatha Dinotsavam" (thanksgiving day) as she had granted statehood to Telangana on that day several years back, and asked the party cadre to make it a huge success.