Congress will win good number of seats in AP bypolls: Ravi

Ravi, who arrived here to take stock of the party's preparedness for the by-elections, told reporters that the party would win a good number of seats.

In addition to looking at the campaign strategy, Ravi said he would discuss during the trip on strengthening the party from the grassroots and government programmes.

Party leaders in the state were working with "more unity and cohesion" and workers were more enthusiastic now, he said.

Ravi 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.

He 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.

Union minister Ghulam Nabi Azad is the regular in-charge of party affairs in Andhra Pradesh.

Bypolls to 16 of the 18 assembly seats were necessitated as the sitting Congress MLAs were disqualified by the Assembly Speaker in December last year for switching loyalty and voting against the Congress government during a floor test.

While another sitting member had quit in support of Kadapa MP Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, actor-turned-politician Chiranjeevi quit as MLA following his election to Rajya Sabha.

By-election in the lone Lok Sabha seat of Nellore has been necessitated because the sitting Congress member quit in support of Jagan.