JOIN USThe Congress refused to bend down to the “mind games” of the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) and declared its candidates for 111 seats for Telangana Assembly polls leaving 8 seats for its only ally the Communist Party of India.
The list, however, disappointed most senior leaders as they tried hard to push their daughters, brothers and sons in the fray, hoping that the Congress high command would compromise.
But the Rahul Gandhi’s invisible rule of “one seat per family” was vibrant in the list released on Monday where all sitting MLAs were re-nominated, defectors were accommodated, but seats to the kin of senior party leaders were denied.
The high command even denied Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee chief Ponnala Lakshmaiah’s request for a ticket to his daughter-in-law.
The list also confirmed that doors were closed for any second thoughts of a re-think on alliance with the TRS. The TRS in fact announced only 69 seats and kept 50 odd seats open in case the Congress made another appeal for an alliance.
The Congress list has been a great relief to the sitting MLAs (about 50 of them) as the high command retained all of them. A staunch loyalist of the Gandhi family, Rajya Sabha MP V Hanumantha Rao was allotted the Amberpet Assembly segment and is pitted against state BJP president G Kishan Reddy.
The Congress has pitted former minister and a veteran of Telangana agitation in the 70s, P Narsa Reddy, against TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao in Gajwel constituency and former deputy chief minister Damodar Rajnarasimha has been renominated from Andole.
Women ministers Geeta Reddy and Sunita Lakshma Reddy have been re-nominated from Zaheerabad and Narsapur. The latest defectors from TRS, Aravind Reddy and G Vinod, have also been accommodated.
Through the list, the Congress has indicated that all those who took part in the Telangana movement should fully exploit and project the grant of statehood as an achievement of the Congress and not that of the TRS .
However, former home minister Sabita Indira Reddy was denied a ticket as she is caught up in a CBI case. Her son Karthik Reddy has been alloted the Chevella Parliamentary seat.
Similarly, actor Vijayshanti, who defected from the TRS a month ago, has been alloted the Medak Assembly seat.