TRS plays gamble with 5th candidate

Pins hopes on MIM support, cross voting by TDP

Hyderabad: With the backing of 75 members in the 119 member Assembly, the TRS was sure of winning four seats but it decided to field fifth candidate and force an election to fill the six vacancies to Telangana Legislative Council under the MLA quota.

According to political analysts, the TRS took this calculated step expecting the support of seven MIM members and pinning high hopes on possible cross voting by a section of TDP MLAs. It also indulged in mind game that at least two to three MLAs of TDP were ready to switch sides. Sources say that it had targeted Kukatpally MLA M Krishna Rao.

A nervous TDP tried to reach out to Krishna Rao as it wanted to make him commit his support to the party candidate by making him a signatory to the nomination to be filed by the official candidate Vem Narender Reddy. But their efforts did not fructify as Rao did not take the repeated calls from TDP leaders. After over two hours, he finally came on line but expressed his inability to join them in signing the nomination forms since he was about 70 km away from Hyderabad.

The TDP leaders in an attempt to outsmart Krishna Rao sent a message to him that TRS had decided not to field the fifth candidate. Soon after this, Rao surfaced in the Assembly premises and joined the TDP leaders who were coming out of the returning officer’s room after filing the nomination papers.

But this has made the TDP more nervous and is worried that there could be cross voting which could mar the prospects of its candidate. It now suspects the integrity of Rao. The TDP also had to struggle to finalise the name of Vem Narender Reddy for the lone seat. The party senior leader E Dayakar Rao was in favour of Arikella Narsa Reddy while the young turk A Revanth Reddy was in favour of Vem Narender.

Revanth, sources say, had impressed TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu that he had got an assurance from Congress floor leader K Jana Reddy of support of one MLA in favour of Vem and that he was ready to take care of fiscal management if required.

On knowing that winning would be difficult without spending money, Narsa Reddy dropped from the race. The TDP is pinning its hopes on support of BJP in the elections. Interestingly, the BJP is understood to have told the TDP that it can perhaps avoid cross voting if the seat was left to the saffron party.

The TRS apart from creating jitters in TDP is also said to be banking on possibility of cross voting from Congress party. That is why Congress is thinking of knocking the doors of Supreme Court seeking an open ballot. But the TRS is questioning as to why Congress never implemented it when it was in power. The ruling party, it is said, was trying to get assurance form some Congress MLAs with the help of Danam Nagender who has threatened to quit Congress and opposed the name of Akula Lalitha.

At one point of time, sources say Danam himself was willing to contest and expressed willingness to spend about Rs 15 crore if need be. But the TRS decided against this since it felt that this may not be a correct strategy and could send wrong signal. Meanwhile, the Congress is trying to dub the TRS as anti-women since it had not given any representation to women in the Council.

By:V Ramu Sarma