HYDERABAD: In a sign that could spell trouble for Mahakutami, comprising Congress, TDP, TJS and CPI, the
Telangana Congress Election Coordination Committee which met here on Tuesday saw some of its members demanding vociferously that the Congress should contest at least 100 assembly seats and leave only 19 segments for its ‘grand alliance’ partners.
There are 119 assembly constituencies in Telangana. Political analysts said the proposal to leave a meagre 19 seats may not go down well with the alliance partners and jeopardise the very concept of grand alliance against K Chandrasekhar Rao-led TRS.
They said the Congress must sacrifice more seats for its electoral partners to make the grand alliance work. The political grapevine is that the TDP and TJS are willing to climb down from their demand of seeking 30-plus seats each in the interest of making the alliance a success, but “they may not agree for just 19 seats to be shared among themselves.”
Discussions were held on Cong’s winning prospects
This is the second meeting of the Pradesh election committee where in nearly 50 senior leaders, including All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary in charge of Telangana RC Khuntia, TPCC president N
Uttam Kumar Reddy, leader of opposition in the Council Md
Ali Shabbir and CLP leader K Jana Reddy among others attended and held discussions on the winning prospects of the Congress and grand alliance candidates and the number of seats to be contested by the Congress.
However, Uttam Kumar Reddy told the meeting that a final decision on number of seats to be contested by Congress would be taken only after seat sharing talks with the alliance partners and advised them not to talk about the numbers.
When contacted, Uttam told TOI that “the 100-seat demand did come up, but it was not at all a final figure. The Congress is keen on making Mahakutami a success and will hold negotiations to settle the seat sharing issue in an amicable manner so that every alliance partner party gets due respect and deserving number of seats, including the Congress.”
“Today’s meeting was to shortlist 3 to 5 candidates from each assembly constituency as we have received 25 applications from each segment,” Uttam added.
He said three sub-committees have been constituted with All India Congress Committee secretaries heading each of them. While two committees have been given 40 assembly constituencies each, the third one 39, to study and suggest top three to five winnable candidates.
The list of these top three to five candidates would be given to the screening committee which would be touring Telangana from October 10 to
14. The candidates would be finalized by the screening committee later after consultations with the All India Congress Committee leadership in New Delhi.