After much dilly-dallying and discussions that stretched to early on Saturday, the Telangana Congress released its third list of 13 candidates and the prominent omission was former minister Marri Shashidhar Reddy while former PCC president Ponnala Lakshmaiah finally found a place.
Mr. Reddy, who was annoyed, expressed his displeasure openly blaming TPCC president N. Uttam Kumar, who he said had presented a survey report to the screening committee that he cannot win. However, later in the evening he flew to New Delhi after receiving a call from the senior leader Ahmed Patel for discussions.
Mr. Shashidhar Reddy, who has been in the forefront against the battle with the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) with regard to removal of large number of voters moving the court, said surveys of different groups have shown clear upper hand for him over sitting Minister, Talasani Srinivas Yadav. Alliance partner, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) that has been seeking the Sanatnagar ticket since the formation of the alliance later announced the name of Kuna Venkatesh Goud.
88 seats
Mr. Shashidhar Reddy, however, did not reveal his future plans and is expected to take a call after his discussions with party leadership in New Delhi. He earlier represented the Sanatnagar constituency and is the son of former Chief Minister Marri Chenna Reddy. The party so far has announced candidates for 88 seats out of the 94 seats it plans to contest leaving the rest to alliance partners.
The third list was delayed as there was a deadlock over the Jangoan seat that was sought by Mr. Ponnala and Telangana Jana Samiti (TJS) chief M. Kodandaram. However, the talks between TPCC president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, AICC incharge R.C. Khuntia and Mr. Ponnala with Mr. Kodandaram finally yielded some fruit with the TJS chief agreeing to leave the seat in the larger interests of the alliance.
The list contained the names of Soyam Bapu Rao (Boath), Taher Bin Hamdan from Nizamabad (Urban), Rekula Bhupathi Reddy from Nizamabad (Rural), D. Sudhir Reddy (LB Nagar), E. Anil Kumar (Balkonda), Balu Naik (Devarakonda), Addanki Dayakar (Tungathurthy) and Banoth Haripriya Naik (Yellandu).
The party also released the names of three candidates for the old city where it is taking on the AIMIM. K. Rajendra Raju (Yakutpura), Kalem Baba (Bahadurpura) and Osman Bin Mohammed Al-Hazri (Karwan) got the nominations.