Andhra Parties Honing Publicity Machinery

The principal political parties in Andhra Pradesh the Telugu Desam, Congress and BJP are honing their publicity paraphernalia in the run-up to next months Lok Sabha polls.

The ruling TDP, harping on its janmabhoomi (community development programme) was busy making short films to highlight its achievements. A folk dance featuring popular Telugu comedian Babu Mohan was shot in Ravindra Bharati auditorium here on Monday.

Babu Mohan crossed over to the TDP after he unsuccessfully contested on the NTR-TDP ticket during the previous election. The folk song was shot with NTR and Chandrababu Naidus cut-outs in the backdrop.

TDP, which pioneered the audio-visual medium for electioneering in 1983, has nearly completed the audio and visual cassettes and work on the advertisement films is in progress, party sources said.

The publicity material would highlight the achievements of TDP on one hand and project the Congresss inefficiency with the dangers of communal politics on the other, they said.

Apart from the audio-visual aids, the TDP had already trained a number of its cadre in propagating the party stand in the elections.

The main opposition Congress was busy with the publicity material for Sonia Gandhis Jan 16 public meeting.

The publicity managers were supervising the huge cut-outs of Sonia, Rajiv Gandhi, PCC president Mallikarjun and CWC member Kotla Vijaya Bhaskara Reddy.

Asked if film stars would campaign for the Congress in the state, one of the state secretaries said Sonia would be their star campaigner and she is the star of stars.

The star studded BJP was hoping to get more attention with film stars Mohan Babu, Krishnam Raju, Vijaya Shanti, Giri Babu and Siva Krishna agreeing to campaign for the party while the publicity wing had ordered for cut-outs of Atal Behari Vajpayee, L K Advani and Murali Manohar Joshi.

The three main parties had drawn up programmes to kick off their respective campaigns after Sankranti.

The Congress party had earlier organised three major public meetings addressed by party president Sitaram Kesri at Nellore, Cuddapah and Vijayawada.

The BJP would start its post-notification campaign in Telengana after Sankranti with Vajpayee addressing three public meetings in the region.

The United Front announced that it would launch its campaign from Hyderabad on Jan 19 which would be attended by top leaders including Prime Minister I K Gujral.

United Front had sorted out the seat adjustments amicably with TDP contesting 36 and its allies CPI and CPM agreeing to have three seats each, the same number as in the previous elections.

The congress would be going it alone in the state as it had contested all 42 seats in the previous elections and won 21 seats. Majlis Ittehadul Muslameen retained the Hyderabad seat in the previous elections.

Seat adjustments between BJP and NTR-TDP could not be worked out even after four rounds of talks as both the parties had some reservations about their respective strength. The two parties drew a blank in the previous elections.

While NTR-TDP could not open its account, BJP lost its lone Secunderabad seat to Congress nominee P V Rajeshwara Rao, son of P V Narasimha Rao.

However, Lakshmi Parvathi and Bharatiya Janata Party spokesman V Rama Rao expressed confidence that the seat adjustment would come through by Jan 16.