HYDERABAD: The BC leaders of Congress are seeing a conspiracy in the party not even considering the names of prominent leaders from their communities, despite their proven record of winning elections and falling under the winnability criteria. They even alleged that Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s coverts are being inducted into the party without giving much consideration despite the bitter experience of seeing MLAs defecting to the ruling party.
Feeling left out by the party, the BC leaders have given a call — Halo BC, Chalo Gandhi Bhavan — to community members to stage a protest. On Thursday, a few BC leaders met at Gandhi Bhavan and took a decision to stage a protest as the Central Election Committee will be sitting in Delhi on Friday to take a call on the list submitted by the State Screening Committee.
Speaking to TNIE, a senior BC leader said that close to 40 ‘unexpected’ names made it to the list sent to the screening committee and the same will be “pushed” to the central election committee. Former PCC chief Ponnala Lakshmaiah’s name is missing from the list. The names of several prominent leaders
were conveniently ignored by the screening committee, he said.
“For instance, we have a strong contender B Raju Yadav in Khairatabad. But, a Reddy leader’s name is being pushed by Revanth Reddy. We hope the party high command will see the conspiracies hatched in the name of winnability criteria and give priority to BCs, who represent 1.8 crore population in the State,” he said. Meanwhile, it is learnt that AICC Telangana in-charge Manikrao Thakre invited the BC leaders for talks. It remains to be seen whether the BCs would go ahead with their proposed dharna.