Vaylar Ravi: Congress will win more seats in AP by-polls

Hyderabad, May 17: Union Minister Vaylar Ravi, who is involved in setting the Congress house in order in Andhra Pradesh, on yesterday night expressed confidence that his party would put up a “good show” in the next month’s bypolls to eighteen Assembly constituencies and one Lok Sabha seat.

Ravi, who arrived here tonight, to take stock of the party’s preparedness for the bye-elections, told reporters that the party would win a good number of seats but refused to hazard a guess on the number of seats.

In addition to looking at the campaign for the bypolls, Ravi said he would discuss on strengthening the party from the grassroots and also the government programmes.

Ravi asserted that the party leaders in Andhra Pradesh worked with “more unity and cohesion” and that the party workers are more enthusiastic now.

The senior leader further said that he would camp in the state for two weeks, though not continuously, in the run-up to bypolls scheduled to be held on June 12.

Ravi was deputed to the state last month in the wake of alleged sharp differences between Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy and PCC president Botsa Satyanarayana and also the rout of Congress in the bypolls held for seven assembly seats in March.

His visit is believed to have had a positive impact on the overall party situation in the state. Another union minister Ghulam Nabi Azad is the regular in-charge of party affairs in Andhra Pradesh.

The bypolls to 16 of the 18 assembly seats are necessitated as the sitting Congress MLAs were disqualified by Assembly Speaker for switching loyalty to Jagan and voting against Congress government during a floor test in December last, while another sitting member quit in support of Kadapa MP Y S Jaganmohan Reddy.

Actor-turned-politician Chiranjeevi quit as MLA following his election to Rajya Sabha which caused bypoll.

The bye-election in lone Lok Sabha seat (Nellore) is necessitated as the sitting Congress member quit in support of Jagan.

PTI