TRS second-rung leaders fidget over prolonged wait for promised posts

HYDERABAD: TRS second-rung leaders are getting increasingly fidgety as they continue to wait for party supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao to reward them for their hard work that helped the party storm to power and then in the bypolls.

Hundreds of TRS leaders have been waiting for years, some of them since 2001, hoping to be given nominated posts in the various corporations. Also waiting are some of the leaders who joined the party just ahead before crucial bypolls.

The increasing restlessness among the second-rung leaders are leaving the party seniors who are now ministers, MPs or MLAs on the edge with less than a year to go before the State goes for elections.

In Greater Hyderabad limits, several leaders joined the TRS from other parties before the GHMC elections hoping to get some recognition, even as the pink party veterans waited for nominated posts. The influx into the party had left the old guard on tenterhooks and the wait had stretched their patience. Some of them are said to be actively considering greener pastures in other parties due to the uncertainty of getting rewarded in the TRS.

It was perhaps this reason that recently, Minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav tried to reassure aspirants not to worry about getting nominated posts by saying that the party would take care of those who are loyal.  
In the recent Munugode bypoll, the entire party worked as one for the victory of the TRS candidate. In the process of campaigning, top-level leaders assured those keen to join the party that they would be considered for nominated posts. Now that the election dust has settled, the ministers, MLAs and in-charges who had made the promise of nominated posts are avoiding meeting the new entrants.

This has resulted in some fresh TRS faces grumbling that the party leadership was not even interested in meeting them.As many as 65 corporations are ‘headless’ with no chairperson having been appointed, while around 250 to 300 member posts are also vacant.

According to some aspirants, they are willing to accept the post of members if it was not possible for the party leadership to reward them with a corporation chairperson post. This, they say, is despite the fact that some leaders have been reappointed to specific posts despite a number of aspirants waiting in the wings.

Aware of the growing discomfiture in the TRS ranks, ministers and MLAs have started requesting party working president KT Rama Rao and Minister T Harish Rao to resolve the issue and prevent it from escalating ahead of the Assembly elections.