The Telangana Jana Samiti (TJS) has said that it will announce candidates for 15 Assembly constituencies and go ahead with campaigning if the Congress continues to delay allotment of seats to its alliance partners.
The core committee of the party took the stand at a meeting here on Monday to discuss the prolonged delay in finalisation of seat sharing by the Congress among its partners. The meeting expressed anguish that the Congress failed to clear the air on the seats to be allotted to the TJS.
In this context, the party leaders mounted pressure on the party president M. Kodandaram to take a view on alliance this way or that way. The leaders of parties in alliance, including Mr. Kodandaram, L. Ramana of Telugu Desam and Chada Venkat Reddy of CPI, also met on quite a few occasions since Sunday night hoping to get some clarity from Congress, a release of TJS said. The release added that the CPI sought response from Congress on the former party’s demand seeking allotment of Husnabad, Bellampalli, Kothagudem, Waira, Munugode and Devarakonda constituencies.
The leaders of three parties were sore that the Congress wanted to finalise its own candidates for constituencies that the parties wanted to contested and then take up their other claims.
A senior leader of TJS said it was informed to Congress to immediately announce formally the formation of grand alliance to fight the TRS so that there is no ambiguity in the minds of people. The individual campaign by parties and their candidates could follow subsequently. The launch of grand alliance and campaign should not be mixed up. Also, the Congress should broadly declare the number of seats each party will contest.