HYDERABAD: Though the Lok Sabha elections are barely three months away, the Congress is yet to find its feet after suffering a humiliating defeat in the recent Assembly elections.

No one seems bothered to draft a road map for the party. For instance, there is no consensus on whether the Praja Kutami will continue for the Lok Sabha polls. Despite Congress leaders opposing the alliance with the TDP after the drubbing the grand old party received, there is hardly any news on whether the modus vivendi will continue.

“I cannot say for now if Praja Kutami will continue or not,” TJS chief Prof M Kodandaram, who was a part of the alliance, said after its debacle. Then came party in-charge for Telangana RC Khuntia’s assertion that the Congress does not consider the TRS its main rival in the Lok Sabha elections as the “real” fight would be between the Congress and the BJP. At a national level, his argument may be right, but in Telangana, the BJP is no force at all — it won only one Assembly seat. On the other hand, the TRS has emerged indestructible and upstaging the pink party in the elections is easier said than done.

Many party leaders feel TPCC president N Uttam Kumar Reddy should have stayed in Hyderabad to boost the morale of his cadre instead of flying abroad at this crucial point. 

The party is also suffering from its age-old problem of lack of unity. Leaders are at loggerheads with one another, with former Union Minister Sarve Satyanarayana, fuming at Uttam and Khuntia, former CLP leader K Jana Reddy not seeing eye to eye with senior leader K Venkata Reddy and former Minister DK Aruna picking fights with former Minister S Jaipal Reddy.  

To make matters worse for the Congress, quite a few of its MLAs are raring to join the TRS and are only waiting for assurances like berths in the Cabinet or Lok Sabha. “No one in our party is interested in gearing up the machinery for panchayat elections or Lok Sabba polls,” a senior  Congress leader said.

For the Congress, facing the Lok Sabha elections is no easy task since the TRS has established  near total supremacy in Telangana. Except in Khammam’s Assembly segments and Mahabubabad’s Lok Sabha constituencies, the Congress has not been able to get anywhere near the TRS. 

In the rest of the Lok Sabha constituencies, the total votes polled by TRS in all the seven segments of each constituency was between 1 lakh and 1.5 lakh votes.

“The Congress can win Khammam and Mahabubabad easily and if sincere efforts are made in projecting Sonia Gandhi as the architect of Telangana and promoting Rahul Gandhi as an alternative to Narendra Modi, the party’s prospects will surely improve,” one Congress leader said.