After the sacking of All India Congress Committee general secretary Digvijay Singh as the in-charge of Telangana affairs last week and appointment of Ramchandra Khuntia in his place, the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee is said to have got a new lease of life.
While Digvijay turned out to be an iron leg for the Congress party in Telangana, his controversial comments on various issues landed the party in an embarrassing situation.
On the other hand, Khuntia who took over as the in-charge of Telangana a couple of days ago, talked tough with the party leaders.
He is learnt to have told the Telangana Congress leaders that if they failed to resolve their internal disputes and come in a single line, the party would take a tough stand.
“If the party comes to power, you are going to become the ministers and hold big positions. I am not going to lose anything. Stop fighting among yourself for the CM post and fight unitedly. The high command will decide who is going to be the leader,” he told them at a meeting on Sunday.
Khuntia asked the party leaders to focus on 31 reserved Assembly constituencies in the state by deploying ‘Rahul Brigade’ consisting of 1.15 lakh workers to woo SCs and STs, which still constituted the traditional vote bank of the Congress party.
He also reportedly suggested formation of a ‘cultural wing’ to beat the ruling TRS at its own game. It is expected to work for strengthening of the party at the grassroots by propagating the party’s core ideology among the masses in the “native style”.
The leadership thinks that the cultural wing will help the party take on the TRS whose trump card during elections was the ‘T-sentiment’ which was exploited to the hilt by roping in Telangana folk artistes.
Khuntia also suggested strengthening of the party’s social media wing to reach out to the urban masses.
He wanted appointment of social media coordinators from village to state levels to make party leaders more visible on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
