Telangana: Ponnam’s exclusion from Congress election committee triggers backlash

AICC General Secretary KC Venugopal had declared the 26-member Telangana Pradesh Election Committee for the ensuing Assembly elections in the State

Hyderabad: The Karimnagar District Congress is up in arms against the State Congress leadership for excluding former MP Ponnam Prabhakar from the Telangana Pradesh Election Committee that was announced on Thursday.

AICC General Secretary KC Venugopal had declared the 26-member Telangana Pradesh Election Committee for the ensuing Assembly elections in the State. In addition to the 26 members, three Ex Officio Members were also announced in the committee. However, this has not gone down well with Karimnagar Congress leaders, who have warned that if the TPCC did not invite Ponnam Prabhakar and sort out the issue, the matter would be taken to the next level.

---

They also said they would take out a huge car rally from all constituencies of erstwhile Karimnagar and arrive at TPCC president A Revanth Reddy’s residence to discuss the issue. Taking serious exception on the exclusion of the former MP’s name in the Election Committee, DCC president K Satyanarayana, Kisan Cell president P Krishna Reddy and other leaders met the MP at Karimnagar on Saturday and extended all support.

Stating that it was humiliation, the Karimnagar Congress leaders questioned the State leadership as to why the former MP’s name was not included in the Committee.

“This is a conspiracy to sabotage the growth of Ponnam Prabhakar, who hails from a BC community. This is not wise on the TPCC’s part to humiliate a senior leader like this,” a senior leader from Karimnagar said, while another said it was unfortunate that they were being forced to raise their voice against their own party against the humiliation done to Ponnam Prabhakar.