Telangana polls: Congress jittery about releasing second list of candidates

Many leaders, who quit the party, have vowed to ensure the defeat of Congress candidates in their constituencies

Hyderabad: Given the dissent and exodus of leaders after announcing the first list of candidates, the Congress appears to be jittery about releasing the second list.

The Congress had released the first list of 55 candidates on October 15. Since then many leaders, including former Minister Ponnala Laxmaiah, the DCC presidents of Medak, Gadwal and Medchal Malkajgiri and quite a few ticket aspirants had quit the Congress in protest against priority being given to “parachute” leaders.

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Many leaders, who quit the party, have vowed to ensure the defeat of Congress candidates in their constituencies. A few leaders have lodged complaints with the Enforcement Directorate over corruption, money laundering and extortion in sale of tickets by the State leadership.

Apart from leaders, the students’ wing, SC and ST wing and BC wing of the Telangana Congress have also openly expressed their ire against the party leadership for failing to issue tickets to leaders from their communities. In this scenario, senior Congress leaders held a meeting at AICC General Secretary KC Venugopal’s residence in New Delhi on Saturday.

Screening Committee Chairman K Muralidharan, AICC Telangana incharge Manikrao Thakare and senior leaders from Telangana participated in the meeting, which lasted for over six hours. Yet, the leaders could not finalise candidates for many contentious constituencies, let alone addressing the dissent among ticket aspirants.

In many constituencies like Wanaparthy, Husnabad, Sathupally, Suryapet, LB Nagar and others, many aspirants are eyeing tickets. Considering the sizeable minority votes in Nizamabad urban constituency, the party leadership is planning to field a minority candidate from the constituency. However, TPCC working president Mahesh Kumar Goud is aspiring to contest from the constituency.

Similarly, in LB Nagar, former MP Madhuyaskhi Goud is seeking ticket but local leaders are against his candidature. Banners and posters were set up at Gandhi Bhavan and other places opposing his candidature from LB Nagar constituency.

No clarity on ticket allocation to CPM

In addition to the dissent from party leaders, the Congress is facing another challenge of allotting tickets to CPM under a pact. The CPM has been insisting on Miryalguda, Bhadrachalam, Madhira and Palair segments.

However, the Bhadrachalam and Madhira tickets have been allotted to sitting Congress MLAs. Though, the Congress is learnt to have approved allotting the Miryalguda ticket to CPM, there is no clarity on the allocation of the second ticket to the CPM.

Amidst these issues, the Congress high command is putting up a brave face. The Screening Committee claimed that candidates were finalised for all constituencies and the list could be announced anytime after the Dasara festival.