Anti-incumbency haunts Congress

HYDERABAD: Mystified at how the beneficiaries of the pro-poor schemes of the state government could vote for any party but the ruling Congress in the recent bypolls, a nine-member ministerial team met at Gandhi Bhavan on Saturday to arrive at likely explanations.
Chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy and PCC president Botsa Satyanarayana were also part of the deliberations.As per decision taken at a cabinet meeting on Friday, the committee headed by minister Dharmana Prasada Rao has to submit its report within 15 days. The exercise is the direct outcome of meetings the chief minister and the PCC chief had last week with Congress high command.
Neither does the party have any idea why its traditional vote bank — comprising SCs, Christians and Muslims — chose to switch allegiance and go with the Jaganmohan Reddy-led YSR Congress.
“Congress feels it has a future only if it can find answers to these questions,” said a minister after the meeting. According to the minister, many members at Saturday’s meeting felt an anti-establishment sentiment was gaining momentum in state.
The popular disaffection with the Congress, as made evident in the byelection results, was the main point of debate at the meeting at Gandhi Bhavan. Sources said that the chief minister and the PCC chief have both asked the committee to understand the roots of the growing dissatisfaction among beneficiaries of various welfare schemes with the ruling party.
Apart from Dharmana, CM and Botsa, those taking part in the meeting were ministers Anam Ramanarayana Reddy, N Raghuveera Reddy, Kanna Lakshminarayana, DK Aruna, B Saraiah, P Viswarup, C Ramachandraiah, P Satyanarayana and Thota Narasimham.
At its first sitting, the leaders were in agreement about how the voters had been carried away by the propaganda blitz unleashed by YSR Congress and its Saakshi media group which eclipsed the campaigning by Congress leaders. They also felt that Jagan’s accusation that the ruling party was scuppering all the welfare schemes had influenced the people.