HYDERABAD: All eyes are on the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) plenary being held in a grand manner at Hitex Convention Centre here on Monday after a gap of three years. The plenary assumes significance as it is being held just five days before the crucial Assembly byelection polling on October 30 where the TRS is waging a ‘do-or-die’ battle against the BJP.

The plenary will begin with the election of K. Chandrashekar Rao as the party president for the tenth term since the inception of the party in 2001. He will be declared elected as party president unopposed as nobody else filed nominations for the party president post. As many as 18 sets of nominations were filed on behalf of Rao by party leaders right from ministers to MLAs, MLCs, MPs to elected representatives of urban and local bodies.

About 6,000 party delegates from minister-level to corporator-level have been invited for the plenary. The party leaders and cadre have painted the entire city with the party’s colour pink by setting up hoardings, flexies and flags along all major roads and junctions, which display a beaming Chandrashekar Rao and his son and minister K.T. Rama Rao along with local leaders of respective constituencies. The hoardings and flexies project Rao as “Dalita Baandavudu” and “Abhivrudhi Pradhata”.

Rao will address the plenary soon after his re-election. Party sources said Rao was expected to utilise the occasion to campaign for the TRS in Huzurabad bypoll since the Election Commission of India (EC) has dashed his plans to address a huge public meeting in the bordering area of Huzurabad on October 27 to beat EC’s covid restrictions on public gathering at maximum number of 1,000 people.

The EC issued revised orders recently prohibiting parties from holding huge public meetings in the bordering areas of Huzurabad constituency. The EC earlier stated that the Covid restrictions would be in force only in Huzurabad constituency but later extended to the entire Karimnagar and Hanamkonda districts since Huzurabad falls under both these districts.

With this, there are no chances of the Chief Minister holding a public meeting for Huzurabad bypoll and to overcome this problem, he has decided to address Huzurabad voters from the TRS plenary venue, sources say.

Party sources said since plenary attracted huge media attention as it would be telecast live by all TV channels and would also get good coverage in newspapers, Rao felt that it would serve the purpose and fill the void of not addressing a public meeting in Huzurabad.

Besides this, the plenary is expected to pass seven resolutions on the political situation at the national and state level, urging the Centre to maintain the federal spirit of the Constitution, agriculture scenario in state, welfare and development programmes of the TRS government etc.

The last plenary was held in April 2018 in Hyderabad. The plenary could not be held in April 2019 due to Lok Sabha polls and in April 2020 and 2021 due to Covid pandemic.

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