Hyderabad: TDP Chief and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu is gearing up to play a key role in Telangana politics again and defeat the current chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao. Sources say his intent of defeating KCR (as Rao is popularly known) is so strong that he's willing to even let the grand alliance of Congress, TDP, CPI and TJS come into power.
The assembly polls are expected to take place in Telangana later this year and the State’s ruling party, Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), wants to face the elections alone. Its party chief KCR has already announced 107 seats out of 119 and got his cadre to actively participate in the election campaign. While the Congress-led grand alliance was formed only recently, the seats adjustment is not finalised yet.
According to some senior leaders, there is still uncertainty in the seat share. TDP wants 25, Telangana Jana Samithi led by professor Kodandaram is asking for 15 seats and CPI wants 10 seats to contest in the elections. But Congress is ready to give 17 to TDP, eight to TJS and four to CPI. TJS has been refusing the Congress’s proposal, not willing to accept the short fall of even a single seat. It even threatened the Congress of exiting the alliance.
This was when Chandrababu decided to enter the scenario. He conducted a meeting with his Telangana party leaders and told them, “Don’t get rigid on seat share. If grand alliance splits, we will not reach our target. Concentrate on the places where we can win.”
Under the guidance of his party chief, TTDP President L. Ramana consulted key leaders of the Congress and accepted two seats short of what they were demanding. He also agreed to give his seats to TJS so that both can fulfil their common agenda — of defeating the TRS.
The TDP is ready to contest where they won in 2014 elections. It believes that these seats can help them in social and regional equations. Talks are still on over seat selection.
But TJS is not happy. A senior leader from the party told News 18: “TJAC fought for separate statehood and problems of the people of Telangana, many leaders participated in it and wants to contest in this elections.”
The leaders are expected to meet shortly to decide their next course of action and Congress’s offer. According to political analysts, the Congress has given enough seats to the TJS and there is a good chance that it will accept the seat share and remain in the grand alliance. After all, the face of (TJS) president Prof. M Kodandaram is useful for grand alliance, the experts pointed out.
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