HYDERABAD: With Grand Alliance parties —Congress, TDP, CPI and TJS — yet to come up with a seat-sharing agreement, it seems likely that the parties will decide on having ‘friendly fights’ with each other. The term refers to a situation when two allied parties announce separate candidates, one being weaker than the other so as to not spoil the stronger one’s chances of winning. Such an arrangement allows the two parties to save face since they can both claim to have fielded more candidates.
As per the current rumoured agreement, Congress is said to keep 95 seats, Telangana TDP will get 14, and the remaining 10 seats will be shared between TJS and CPI. Both TJS and CPI have gone on record about their opposition to such an agreement on grounds that these were fewer seats than they originally wanted. With such bickering between the parties, sources say, the logical course of action would be to have ‘friendly fights’. TJS chief Kodandaram has said that his party would not settle for anything less than 10 seats. An insider in the party told Express that if the seat-sharing talks fail, and it gets not more than 4-5 seats, it will still field candidates from the other constituencies it wants. “Some constituencies TJS is said to be getting, such as Siddipet and Chandrayangutta, are not places where we are strong,” he said.
Similarly, CPI is also not happy with the rumoured four seats. The party, in an attempt to strong arm Congress, recently convened an emergency meeting to discuss whether it even wanted to stay in the alliance. Chada Venkat Reddy, the party’s Telangana secretary, had recently said, “It is humiliating for us if we, a national party , get only 4-5 seats.” It may be noted that such contests existed between CPI and CPI(M) and also between Congress and AIMIM in some seats in Hyderabad.
Everything depends on Congress now. Will it accommodate its allies?
Meanwhile, TPCC president N Uttam Kumar Reddy along with AICC general secretary and in-charge for Telangana RC Khuntia, and other senior leaders held a meeting with members of screening committee in New Delhi. The cadre expects that its candidates will be finalised in this meeting.
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Warangal: Senior TDP leader Revuri Prakash Reddy alleged that ruling party leaders were sending large quantity of liquor in their constituencies to woo voters. “Every evening, villages are turning into bars. This has been going on for nearly a month now. We (grand alliance) are worried about the health of the people, as opposed to TRS leaders who seem to be more interested in their votes,” he said.
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