The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : APCC to replicate Left parties’ example

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Sunday, Aug 19, 2007
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

APCC to replicate Left parties’ example

W. Chandrakanth

Leaders to adopt West Bengal model and involve cadre in all welfare programmes

— Photo: Mohd. Yousuf

Policy matters: Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy greeting AICC secretary Iqbal Singh at the joint meeting of the PCC and CLP in Hyderabad on Saturday.

HYDERABAD: Although the Congress party does not spare any effort to criticise the CPI (M)’s style of functioning in the States in which it is in power, the leadership of the ruling party here has decided to take a leaf out of Left parties’ book.

The Congress leaders here have more or less adopted the West Bengal model of involving the party cadre in a big way in every scheme.

Pradesh Congress Committee chief K. Keshava Rao declared after a combined meeting of the Congress Legislature Party and an extended executive of PCC on Saturday that the party workers, henceforth, would directly supervise the welfare programmes.

To counter the Opposition effort to take credit in the housing programme, he said the officials would ensure that the draft lists prepared by the workers would be honoured without fail. It would be so in case of every welfare measure. Sanction letters too would be routed to the people through the workers.

The ruling party is said to have adopted the practice after coming to terms with the fact that mere criticism of the Left would not help it much in gaining publicity “for its good work”. A Congress Legislature Party (CLP) team led by Government Chief Whip N. Kiran Kumar Reddy that visited West Bengal recently, kept harping on the point that the CPI (M) had positioned the party ahead of Government to allow benefits trickle down to the people. “No benefit reaches people there without the consent of the party,” he repeated often.

Same message

The Congress here now wants to send the same message to those joining the land struggles or supporting the Opposition. The meeting was attended by about 250 delegates including Ministers, MPs and MLAs.

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