Challenging task for Congress in 40 seats

Hyderabad: It appears that the initial euphoria of setting aside all differences and working towards huge victory in Telangana Assembly elections by Telangana Congress seems to be on wane and it is getting replaced by the possibility of threat of rebels in at least 40 of the 119 constituencies.

The list of aspirants is growing, and they are learnt to have told the party leadership that if they didn’t get the ticket, they would contest the elections as rebel candidates.

This has now pushed the party leadership into a new problem and the buzz in the Congress circles is that the announcement of candidates for the ensuing Assembly elections may take more time than what was anticipated. Congress in-charge Manick Rao Thakre had earlier said that they would release the first list by the end of August. This seems to have intensified the fight for the tickets.

In view of this, the Political Affairs Committee of the Congress is meeting here on Saturday where party general secretary Venugopal will also be present to sort out such issues.

It may be recalled that the Congress high command has recently constituted a three-member Screening Committee headed by party senior leader Muralidharan and TPCC president A Revanth Reddy, CLP leader Bhatti Vikramarka and former TPCC chief N Uttam Kumar Reddy as members.

The screening committee will finalize the names of the potential candidates to contest the Assembly elections. It is learnt that some of the aspirants include those who are strong followers of TPCC president A Revanth Reddy. Another group says that it is they who have been carrying the party flag and have been loyal to the party for decades and that it is their rightful claim for the ticket. They also said that if they were denied tickets they would contest the polls as rebel candidates.

In old Nalgonda district, Congress senior leader Patel Ramesh Reddy, a close aide of Revanth Reddy, is demanding ticket from Suryapet Assembly constituency. Another senior most Congress leader and former minister R Damodar Reddy is expecting ticket to contest against Minister G Jagdish Reddy. Damodar Reddy had lost to Jagdish Reddy in 2018 elections.

In Khammam district, CLP leader’s close aide Mohd Javeed is expecting the ticket but after Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy joined the Congress, he feels threatened. Javeed feels that there were a large number of Muslim voters in the constituency and hence he should be given the ticket.

Three Congress leaders R Nageshwar Reddy, P Prasad Reddy and Naresh Reddy are vying for the ticket from Palair Assembly segment . Matta Dayanad and S Chandrashekhar from Sathupally, Payam Venkateshwarlu and Congress leader Gandhi from Revanth team are expecting party tickets.

In Karimnagar district, Komatireddy Narendar Reddy and former TPCC chief M Satyanarayana Rao’s son Rohit Rao are vying with each other for the Karimnagar Assembly segment. In the meantime, P Vishnuvardhan Reddy and B Venkat from NSUI have already launched party campaigns separately.

In Mahbubnagar district, Revanth’s followers G Madhusudhan Reddy and Prashanth Reddy are demanding the party ticket.

The party leaders are said to be preparing a strategy to keep the rebel threat at bay by offering plum posts once the party wins the elections.