HYDERABAD: Barely half an hour after the Congress announced its candidates for eight of the 12 Assembly byelections on July 27, fights came to the fore in the party with Sirpur municipality chairman Ghulam Dastagiri and eight councillors deciding to resign from the party because their leader MLC Prem Sagar had been ignored and Indrakaran Reddy given the nod.
Last-time loser Koneti Konappa was persuaded to stay out of the race as he is a migrant from Krishna district and this byelection is about the Telangana issue. He deferred to Indrakaran but Dastagiri would not, miffed that his master Prem Sagar was not allowed to take a shot at wresting the seat from the TRS.
In five of the eight constitutuencies for which candidates were named today, the party kept faith in those who were defeated in the 2009 election.
Only in Sircilla, Sirpur and Yellareddy will it field others. Though there was not much immediate dissent in the other constituencies, rumblings might be heard soon there too.
As expected, the Congress has renominated PCC president D Srinivas for Nizamabad Urban for another tilt at his nemesis of 2009, the BJP’s Lakshminarayana.
According to sources, the party weighed the winnability of each candidate and their acceptance to separatist voters. On both counts, the party thought its best bets were those who took a beating in 2009.
The party favoured former minister Md Ali Shabbir who was bested by the TDP on his home turf of Kamareddy in Nizamabad district. This time he is being accommodated in Yellareddy in the same district, though the former minister is an alien there, ignoring the claims of Janardhan Goud, the loser of 2009.
Senior Congress leader G Venkataswami’s son G Vinod, one of a whole host of ministers who lost the last election in Telangana, will again be fielded from Chennur in Adilabad district. As anticipated, Karimnagar zilla parishad chairman A Laxmankumar will contest from Dharmapuri in Karimnagar district.
K K Mahender Reddy, a Jaganmohan Reddy camper and giver of a stiff fight to KCR scion K Rama Rao in Sircilla in 2009, has been coopted into the Congress this time and asked to take on the prince of the TRS. Rama Rao scraped through last time by 179 votes -- postal ballots being the saviour -- against Mahender Reddy, then an Independent.
Last-time Congress nominee Gudla Manjula has been asked to sit and watch.
For Vemulavada and Warnagal West, the party has renominated those who lost the 2009 elections - A Srinivas (Vemulavada) and K Dayasagar Rao ( Warangal West).
The candidates for the remaining four constituencies _ Huzurabad, Korutla, Mancherial and Siddipet _ where the party will face a tough fight will be finalised in a day or two.
