Even though YSR Congress leadership was adamant to go ahead with Saturday’s anti-Telangana rally in Hyderabad, the rain of last four days and the forecast for more rainfall over the next 48 hours, have created an uncertainty over it.
The continous rainfall made lal Bahadur Shastri Stadium, the venue of the YSRCP rally, into a cesspool and slushy.
As the party was relying mostly on its supporters in Andhra and Rayalaseema, to make the ‘Samaikhya Shankharavam’ a big success, the rain and floods in the two regions have made mobilisation of people rather difficult.
Though many middle and lower-rung leaders approached the party president YS Jaganmohan Reddy on Friday, with a request to postpone the rally, he turned it down saying the rally will be held at any cost on Saturday.
The sources said that Jagan was apprehensive that repeated changes in the dates will send a wrong message. First the rally was scheduled for October 18 but later it was changed to October 24. Then it was postponed to 28 and then it was advanced to 26 October.
The party has set a target of bringing 5 to 10 lakh of its supporters from other regions to immobilise Hyderabad city and build pressure on the Central Government to give up the idea of bifurcating Andhra Pradesh and forming Telangana State.
The stadium has the capacity for only 50,000 people but the party had planned to bring a lot more people to observe the proceedings on the lCD screens to be installed all around the stadium.
The party had arranged for nine special trains and over two thousand buses from Rayalaseema and Andhra. Moreover, it was also spending a lot of money to bring in the crowds from neighboring districts of Telangana specially in Mehbubnagar and Nalgonda to claim that many people in Telangana were also in favor of a united Andhra Pradesh.
“The rally will be so big that it will rattle the Government in New Delhi”, said senior YSRCP leader K Ramakrishna.
Byreddy Rajashekhar Reddy, president of Rayalaseema Protection Committee claimed that YSRCP was spending `1 billion to make the rally successful.
Even as rain continued on Friday and pools of water had made the ground of the stadium slushy, leaders of YSRCP visited the place to review the arrangements. As the weather department have predicted heavy to very heavy rain in Hyderabad and other areas of the State, over the next 48 hours, uncertainty was still hanging over the fate of the rally.
Notwithstanding the uncertainty, the police authorities have started making elaborate security arrangements. 4000 policemen including members of the paramilitary forces were being deployed to ensure peace on Saturday.