HYDERABAD: Differences between the Congress and the CPM, both constituents of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), came to the fore on Saturday with both parties deciding to field their candidates for the Bhuvanagiri Lok Sabha seat.
While the Left party’s decision to contest for the Bhuvanagiri seat has raised question marks about the unity among INDIA bloc constituents, the CPM has informed the Congress that it will support the grand old party’s candidates in the remaining 16 seats in Telangana.
It may be mentioned here that a majority of the Opposition parties in the country had come together and formed the INDIA bloc with the aim of avoiding a split in Opposition votes and with the objective of defeating the BJP. The Congress, CPI, and CPM are among the constituents of the INDIA bloc along with other regional parties.
However, efforts by the leadership of both the Congress and CPM to forge a cohesive alliance at the state level have been unfruitful. Now that the poll notification has been issued and the process of filing of nominations has begun, both the parties remain unwilling to concede. Fresh from its victory in the Assembly election, the Congress is not ready to give any Lok Sabha seat to its alliance partners CPM and CPI in Telangana. While the CPI appears to be not that keen on contesting, the CPM has already filed its nomination for the Bhuvanagiri seat.
Amidst this stand-off, Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy, who is also the TPCC president, launched a bitter attack on Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan during his campaign in that state. The CPM state unit of Telangana took serious exception to Revanth’s tirade during the talks at the state level.
While Mohammed Jahangir filed nomination papers on CPM ticket from Bhuvanagiri, Revanth is likely to attend the filing of nomination of Congress candidate Chamala Kiran Kumar Reddy on Sunday.
When asked, CPM state secretary Tammineni Veerabhadram said that they are forging the alliances at state level as per the local conditions. He cited the example of Kerala where both CPM and Congress candidates are in the fray.
When asked about the split of votes, Veerabhadram said, “Absolute political cohesion is not possible. There can be differences between different ideological parties.”
Veerabhadram, however, said that they may reconsider the decision if the Congress comes up with offers of MLC or any other nominated posts, as is being speculated.
“Let them come forward with the proposal first, then I can respond,” the CPM state secretary said.