For Telangana Congress, a new president and some hope
The Hindu
A. Revanth Reddy has a lot of work to do in making the Congress relevant in Telangana
The fear of being consumed by the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is slowly gathering steam in Telangana, has pushed the Congress to focus on strengthening its cadre base and become relevant once again.
The formation of Telangana was a very emotive issue. The Congress thought it would gain from the birth of the new State. But since 2014, the party has only been diminishing in strength. Its poor performance has largely been due to infighting between senior leaders who projected themselves as chief ministerial candidates. Also, the defection of MLAs to the ruling party after the 2014 and 2018 elections badly damaged the Congress’s organisational strength.
The election authorities are gearing up for the counting of votes cast in the simultaneous elections to Lok Sabha and Assembly seats in Andhra Pradesh, scheduled to be held on June 4. The Collectors and Election Officers of Visakhapatnam, Anakapalli and Alluri Sitharama Raju (ASR) districts said on May 23 (Thursday) that their teams were ready for the counting of votes.
Responding to the prolonged water scarcity, the residents of the area took to the streets in protest on Wednesday. The protest, which drew attention to their plight, stopped only after the intervention of the police. It was not until 1.30 p.m. that a 4000-litre tanker was finally delivered by BWSSB, providing relief to the water-starved residents.