K T Rama Rao to tour Telangana before gram panchayat polls

TRS working president K.T. Rama Rao will undertake district-wise tours within two weeks to gear up party cadres for the gram panchayat polls. 

The party executive met on Saturday for the first time under Mr Rama Rao’s leadership and resolved to take up a party membership drive in the second week of February and start an insurance scheme for party workers. 

While addressing the executive, Mr Rao said a Rs 10-lakh grant would be given to the each gram panchayat where the elections are unanimous.

Stating that a public grievance cell will be set up at Telangana Bhavan, he appealed to the executive committee to ensure that party cadres participate in voter enrolment for the panchayat elections, which commences on December 26.  He



told party leaders to be prepared for the Lok Sabha elections from March.

The meeting decided to relieve new legislators M. Gopal, S. Ravi, Shankar Mynampally Hanumantha Rao, Patnam Narender Reddy and B. Krishna Mohan Reddy from the executive upon their election. 

Earlier, Mr Rama Rao welcomed independent MLA Ramulu Naik, who won from Wyra, into the TRS.  He said that though the party had swept the state,  the results in Khammam district were discouraging and assigned party workers the task of winning the Khammam Lok Sabha seat. 

He said only if the TRS won 16 LS seats, it would be in a position to dictate terms to the Centre and secure projects to the state.