Jagan will lose steam: Azad

Congress to mobilise its resources and ensure a turnaround by 2014

AICC general secretary in charge of Andhra Pradesh Ghulam Nabi Azad has said that in order to make up for the loss of image the party has suffered in the recent by-elections, all Congressmen in the state will have to meet the people, explain what the government is doing for them and convince them to vote for the Congress in the next general election.

Mr Azad accompanied Presidential candidate Pranab Mukherjee to Hyderabad on Sunday. He spoke exclusively to this correspondent before leaving for Delhi in the evening.

Mr Azad said it is quite natural for people to have sympathy for Kadapa MP Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, whose YSR Congress swept the bypolls, since he visited almost all the vil- lages in the Seemandhra region which Congressmen could not do for the last two years.

“Jagan Mohan Reddy almost conducted a doorto-door campaign through his Odarpu and other yatras, whereas our people could not go. The Jagan euphoria will not be there now and it is for the Congress leaders to move

Jagan ran a doorto-door campaign through his Odarpu yatra for 2 years. The euphoria over him will not last long. Congress will move ahead.

to villages to meet people and convince them,” Mr Azad said.

The Union health minister admitted that the byelection results were a serious set-back to the Congress.

“We have to do a lot more, and I believe we will do it, we will mobilise all our resources and see that there is a turnaround in the state within the next few months.”

Refusing to give any details of the possible changes the party is contemplating, Mr Azad said AICC president Sonia Gandhi is yet to take stock of the situation and he cannot comment on what steps the party will take in the coming days.

“I believe the state leadership has appointed a 10member ministers’ committee to go into all aspects of what actually went wrong and what steps need to be taken to rejuvenate the party image. Let them come out with some concrete steps. We will review it and implement it,” the AICC general secretary told this newspaper.

“The coming two years will not be the same for the Congress party. We must mobilise all resources to reach people and win them back,” he said.

Mr Azad said that when the late Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy had projected welfare schemes and programmes as if he had invented them, the AICC had not objected because he was in the Congress and the programmes had yielded rich dividends to the party.

“But when he was no more, his son Jagan Mohan Reddy started a campaign as if he had inherited the schemes. We failed to prevent this. Now things have changed. You will see a lot of campaigning by Congressmen in the coming days,” Mr Azad said.

He refused to divulge the party's thinking on the Telangana statehood issue.

“The process has been initiated. It will take some time before we announce our decision on Telangana,” was all Mr Azad was willing to say.