Losers in Telangana Assembly poll now frontrunners for Congress ticket
Roushan Ali | TNN | Mar 14, 2019, 06:55 IST
HYDERABAD: Several Congress candidates who lost the December 2018 Assembly elections have emerged as frontrunners for party tickets for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
In an exercise than began two days ago and is still continuing, the AICC screening committee is short-listing candidates for the 17 Lok Sabha constituencies in Telangana at a meeting in Delhi after consulting AICC general secretary in-charge of Telangana RC Khuntia, Telangana Congress president N Uttam Kumar Reddy and Congress Legislature Party leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka.
In addition to various parameters, including the capacity to pump in money to contest the election, “winning prospects” was taken as the main criteria in short-listing the aspirants.
The AICC central election committee will go through the short-listed candidates’ list and a final list of THE Congress party candidates is expected to be released before March 16.
Sources in the AICC said the aspirants short-listed for half a dozen of the total 17 Lok Sabha seats in Telangana are the candidates who had lost the December 2018 Assembly polls.
“They may be or may not be the final contesting candidates. But they certainly have emerged as front-runners for some of the Lok Sabha seats. These candidates include Ponnam Prabhakar for Karimnagar Lok Sabha seat, Ramesh Rathod for Adilabad, exminister A Chandrasekhar for Peddapalle, Vamshichand Reddy for Mahbubanagar, SA Sampath and Mallu Ravi from Nagarkurnool and Komatireddy Venkatreddy from Nalgonda,” a senior AICC leader said.
Senior leaders said there is no dearth of candidates in the Congress. Nearly 400 leaders applied for tickets for the 17 Lok Sabha seats.
Though some of these candidates may have lost the Assembly polls, they have the capacity to turn the tide in favour of the Congress. “All these are winning candidates and that they had lost the Assembly election due to various reasons — money, police and muscle power, official machinery misuse by the ruling TRS, partisan attitude of the election authorities, alleged tampering of EVMs, deletion of lakhs of pro-Congress voters names from electoral list,” a senior leader said.
TPCC president N Uttam Kumar Reddy said that there was no one in the front or last as Congress candidates will be finalized by the party leadership and “winning prospect” will be the main criteria in selecting them to contest the polls.
“Despite chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and the ruling TRS indulging in all sorts of undemocratic and unconstitutional ways to purchase our MLAs and weaken the party, Congress has a history of making strong comebacks. Like a phoenix the Congress will rise from the ashes to emerge victorious by defeating the TRS and BJP in the Lok Sabha elections and Rahul Gandhi will be the next Prime Minister,” he said.
In an exercise than began two days ago and is still continuing, the AICC screening committee is short-listing candidates for the 17 Lok Sabha constituencies in Telangana at a meeting in Delhi after consulting AICC general secretary in-charge of Telangana RC Khuntia, Telangana Congress president N Uttam Kumar Reddy and Congress Legislature Party leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka.
In addition to various parameters, including the capacity to pump in money to contest the election, “winning prospects” was taken as the main criteria in short-listing the aspirants.
The AICC central election committee will go through the short-listed candidates’ list and a final list of THE Congress party candidates is expected to be released before March 16.
Sources in the AICC said the aspirants short-listed for half a dozen of the total 17 Lok Sabha seats in Telangana are the candidates who had lost the December 2018 Assembly polls.
“They may be or may not be the final contesting candidates. But they certainly have emerged as front-runners for some of the Lok Sabha seats. These candidates include Ponnam Prabhakar for Karimnagar Lok Sabha seat, Ramesh Rathod for Adilabad, exminister A Chandrasekhar for Peddapalle, Vamshichand Reddy for Mahbubanagar, SA Sampath and Mallu Ravi from Nagarkurnool and Komatireddy Venkatreddy from Nalgonda,” a senior AICC leader said.
Senior leaders said there is no dearth of candidates in the Congress. Nearly 400 leaders applied for tickets for the 17 Lok Sabha seats.
Though some of these candidates may have lost the Assembly polls, they have the capacity to turn the tide in favour of the Congress. “All these are winning candidates and that they had lost the Assembly election due to various reasons — money, police and muscle power, official machinery misuse by the ruling TRS, partisan attitude of the election authorities, alleged tampering of EVMs, deletion of lakhs of pro-Congress voters names from electoral list,” a senior leader said.
TPCC president N Uttam Kumar Reddy said that there was no one in the front or last as Congress candidates will be finalized by the party leadership and “winning prospect” will be the main criteria in selecting them to contest the polls.
“Despite chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and the ruling TRS indulging in all sorts of undemocratic and unconstitutional ways to purchase our MLAs and weaken the party, Congress has a history of making strong comebacks. Like a phoenix the Congress will rise from the ashes to emerge victorious by defeating the TRS and BJP in the Lok Sabha elections and Rahul Gandhi will be the next Prime Minister,” he said.
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