HYDERABAD: The Pradesh Election Committee (PEC) of the Telangana Congress went into a huddle on Tuesday to shortlist the candidates for the upcoming Assembly elections.
As some of the members were keen that the shortlisting of the candidates be based on the survey report of the party’s election strategist Sunil Kanugolu, the PEC resolved to meet again on September 2 before forwarding the list to the screening committee which is scheduled to meet on September 4.
The list provided to the PEC featured the names of as many as 1,006 aspirants from all the 119 Assembly constituencies in the State.
Meanwhile, reports of a heated exchange between TPCC chief A Revanth Reddy and his predecessor N Uttam Kumar Reddy over the allocation of two seats to one family were dismissed as baseless by the Nalgonda MP.
According to the reports, when former Union minister P Balram Naik sought tickets for himself and his son, Revanth reportedly said that the party high command would look into it. Doing so, he shot down the proposal of Uttam, whose wife had also applied for a ticket, to forward the application to the high command. Revanth reported that nobody can dictate terms to him. Taking offence, Uttam walked out of the meeting, according to the reports. However, Uttam told TNIE that there was no truth to the “false reports”
Congress first list likely to have 30 to 40 names
Apart from the name and constituency, no other details of the aspirants were incorporated in this list despite the aspirants being told to submit their caste certificates along with banker’s cheques.
However, TPCC working president B Mahesh Kumar Goud, who briefed the media after the meeting, said that the PEC discussed the association of the aspirants with the party, their date of joining, activities carried out, and protests against anti-people’s policies of the government.
He said that the PEC also discussed the allocation of seats to SC, ST, and BCs. “The SC, ST, BC candidates will be declared in the first list which would have about 30 to 40 names,” Mahesh Kumar Goud said.