Telangana Congress leaders seem to be nervous about going to the people after the state High Court ordered them to hold sarpanch elections within three months. The elections are causing anxiety among the people at a time when the representatives of the people are reluctant to go to the villages as the election promises have not been properly implemented even after 18 years of coming to power.
Attempts to stall the time by using BC reservations as an excuse have backfired. Chief Minister Revanth Reddy also seems to be abdicating, leaving the responsibility of making the party candidates win in the local body elections to the ministers and MLAs.
The reviews conducted by the party’s state affairs in-charge Meenakshi Natarajan on the strengths and weaknesses of the Congress at the field level in phases since March are not promising. It is reported that she has found that 40% of the MLAs are staying away from their constituencies. She also found prevailing group rivalries in 75% of the constituencies.
There are whispers that this issue has disturbed Meenakshi. It is learnt that Congress strategist Sunil Kanugolu’s team also conducted a survey in villages from the last week of April to the last week of May to assess the actual situation at the field level. It was found that the performance of five ministers and 32 MLAs was not good at all.
People said that 52 percent of the MLAs were more focused on their own work than their own constituencies. An IVR (Interactive Voice Response) survey was conducted across the state from May 25 to June 10. There is talk that the government itself is conducting the survey with a third-party agency.
It is mainly said that the CM’s office has conducted the survey with a private agency. It is said that they called the voters constituency-wise and upon receiving the call, they asked, ‘How is your MLA’s performance?’ and collected answers with 4 options – good, okay, not good, and cannot say. According to the results of this survey, people concluded that MLA performance was not good in 47 percent of constituencies.
