Date:11/09/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/09/11/stories/2008091158010100.htm

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Sonia visit to set tone for Congress campaign

Photo: K.V. Poornachandra Kumar

Image building: A huge cut-out erected at Tirupati on Wednesday.

HYDERABAD: All India Congress Committee president Sonia Gandhi is expected to set the tone for her party’s campaign for the Assembly elections when she tours the State on Thursday.

She will address two important public meetings – one at Tirupati and the other in Anantapur – where the government and the Congress party are making efforts to mobilise people on a large scale. In between, she will visit Kadapa district to inaugurate Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge Technologies.

At Tirupati, the ruling party is leaving no stone unturned to ensure participation of more than two lakh women members of self help groups. This will be fourth and the biggest meeting that Ms. Gandhi will address since the Congress came to power four years ago.

The Congress plans to utilise the event to showcase the government’s initiatives and thus send a message that the party continues to receive patronage of women ahead of its rivals. The visit, coming in the light of major political developments like launch of political party by film star Chiranjeevi, is aimed at blunting the Opposition’s efforts to exploit what they call the ‘discontent’ prevailing among the people. The APCC is planning to utilise the Anantapur meeting as an opportunity for a show of strength to counter the publicity generated by Mr. Chiranjeevi’s public meeting at Tirupati that witnessed a mammoth gathering.

Panic reaction

New Delhi correspondent adds: TDP parliamentary party leader K. Yerran Naidu alleged that the Congress president’s frequent visits to Andhra Pradesh were nothing but a panic reaction to the political mobilisation by the TDP and other parties. Each of her visit to the State was marked by gross misuse of official machinery as was evident from the Chittoor district administration admitting that it would be spending more than Rs.11 crore for mobilising people for the Tirupati meeting, he added.