Congress will contest 2024 elections in Andhra Pradesh on its own strength, says PCC chief Gidugu Rudra Raju

The party will seek people’s mandate by promising Special Category Status to the State, the PCC chief says, and exhorts the electorate to reject the TDP, the YSRCP and the JSP as they ‘compromised on State’s interests’

Buoyed by the “tremendous response” to the Bharat Jodo Yatra of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, the party has decided to fight the 2024 elections to the Lok Sabha and the State Assembly in Andhra Pradesh on its own strength, according to Pradesh Congress Committee president Gidugu Rudra Raju.

Addressing the media here on Thursday, Mr. Rudra Raju said the party would seek the people’s mandate by promising Special Category Status (SCS) to the State.

“The first file to be signed by the Congress government at the Centre will be the one relating to the SCS,” the PCC chief asserted.

He further laid stress on the need for extending the law providing for Scheduled Castes / Scheduled Tribes sub-plan for another 10 years.

Exhorting the people to reject the three regional parties — the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) and the Jana Sena Party (JSP), he said any vote for these outfits meant indirectly strengthening the hands of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), whose “sectarian agenda” these parties had backed all along and compromised on the State’s interests on various issues, including SCS.

Mr. Rudra Raju coined an acronym for BJP as “Babu (TDP chief), Jagan (Chief Minister), and Pawan (JSP chief) party.”