ICC general secretary Digvijaya Singh on Friday said it was not for one specific party or leader to decide to whom the City of Pearls belonged to. The Congress party would stand by the poor, the downtrodden and weaker sections, come hell or high water, he said. “Hyderabad is yours. Remember who initiated all the development that you are now witnessing,” he told gatherings that predominantly comprised women, joining the election campaign in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) with just 72 hours to go before campaign comes to a close.
The senior leader participated in at least a half-a-dozen road shows in GHMC limits, spanning Hyderabad, Secunderabad and Ranga Reddy district. He joined a rally taken out by the party leaders and cadre at A.S. Rao Nagar II unmindful of the scorching afternoon sun. He addressed street-corner meetings at around a dozen locations starting from Sainikpuri, Radhika Theatre, Saket Complex, Jammigadda, Manikeswari Nagar and parts of the Old City including Chandrayangutta, till the evening.
“I am ashamed to note that Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao did not even bother to visit the University of Hyderabad campus that has been on the boil for over a fortnight now, especially after the ‘suicide’ of Rohith Vemula. He took so long to even offer his condolences,” he said, to an emotional response from the gathering that predominantly comprised women.
Apart from harping on the development plank, Mr. Digvijaya Singh appeared to have the ears of the women when he spoke of the skyrocketing prices of essential commodities. “How can anyone think of complete nutrition for the family, especially for children, when ‘tur’ dal now costs over Rs. 200 a kilo? Can anyone sleep peacefully with thoughts of such realities?” he asked.
Among those who accompanied Mr. Singh were Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, MLC P. Sudhakar Reddy and MLA Sampath Kumar, apart from former ministers Basavaraju Saraiah and Balaraju.
The leaders chorused in unison that it was imperative for people not to repeat earlier mistake of electing those from the Telangana Rashtra Samiti, the Bharatiya Janata Party or the Telugu Desam Party, saying they were all lying. None of them had any intentions of keeping their promises and, on the other hand, once elected, there was no guarantee that those from the BJP and the TDP would not join the ruling party, he said.
