HYDERABAD: A flurry of activity was witnessed here on Monday, a day ahead of the counting of votes in Telangana with the leaders of the People’s Front meeting Governor ESL Narasimhan. A team comprising TPCC chief Uttam Kumar Reddy, TTDP president L Ramana, TJS president Kodandaram, CPI leader Palla Venkat Reddy and other senior leaders met the Governor requesting that their People’s Front, an alliance of four parties, be treated as a single political entity and be given the first opportunity to form the next government if it gets more seats than the TRS in the event of a hung Assembly. The Front leaders told the Governor that the four opposition parties had entered into a pre-poll alliance and contested the elections together.
“We have requested the Governor to first invite Congress-led People’s Front to form the government and prove majority in case our alliance gets more seats than TRS. As People’s Front is a pre-poll alliance, according to Constitution it has the eligibility to be considered as a single largest party.
We have submitted the documents proving pre-poll alliance of the People’s Front. As we are not sure, whether we will get an opportunity to meet the Governor tomorrow or not, we met him today,” Uttam Kumar Reddy told newsmen after meeting the Governor at Raj Bhavan.
Besides evolving various possibilities in case of hung Assembly, Congress High Command has already swung into action to keep its flock together. TPCC has already informed all its candidates that the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting will be held at 5 pm and directed all the winning candidates to attend the meeting. It is said that MLAs of all the alliance parties will also have to attend the meeting, to ensure that all the legislators are together and prevent them from being poached by others.
It is learnt that the Congress High Command is keeping a close watch on the developments in Telangana, along with Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh where close contests are expected and Congress troubleshooters like Karnataka minister DK Shivakumar, Jairam Ramesh and others have already been entrusted the job of dealing with a fractured mandate like situation in Telangana. Besides keeping its flock together, Congress is leaving no stone unturned to woo independents and AIMIM.