The attempts of the Congress party to make its friendly parties commit for the grand alliance proved futile, as they flatly rejected its proposal to invite their leaders for the public meetings of AICC president Rahul Gandhi in Telangana.
Rahul will be addressing public meetings at Bhainsa and Kamareddy, besides taking part in Rajiv Gandhi Sadbhavana Yatra at Charminar in Hyderabad on Saturday.
Telangana Congress president Capt N Uttam Kumar Reddy invited the leaders of the alliance partners –Telugu Desam Party, Telangana Jana Sena and the Communist Party of India, to attend Rahul meetings.
Though the response of the TDP and CPI was not known officially, they reportedly conveyed to the Congress their inability to attend the meeting before the formation of the alliance.
But TJS president Prof M Kondandaram officially declared that there is no question of attending the Congress party meetings without deciding on the seat sharing among the alliance partners.
“Let the alliance be formalised by completing the seat sharing exercise. We cannot attend the Rahul Gandhi meetings, as they are being held not on behalf of the alliance, but on behalf of the Congress party,” he categorically said.
Kodandaram is said to be terribly upset with the hard bargaining being done by the Congress party with regard to seat sharing.
He submitted a list of 36 candidates to be contesting the upcoming elections and finally agreed to settle down to 20, but the Congress is not willing to give more than nine seats – Asifabad, Ashwaraopet, Bellampalli, Ramagundam, Malkajgiri, Malakpet, Siddipet, Amberpet and Miryalguda.
However, Kodandaram knows these are the seats where the chances of winning are very bleak.
For example, it is next to impossible to win Siddipet seat represented by Telangana Rashtra Samithi leader T Harish Rao.
So is the case with Ramagundam represented by senior TRS leader Somarapu Satyanarayana and Amberpet represented by BJP leader G Kishan Reddy.
The Congress has imposed a condition that if the TJS wants more than nine seats, it has to contest on the Congress party symbol.
Kodandaram flatly rejected it saying it amounts to the TJS merging with the Congress.
“Finally, the TJS might be forced to settle down for 12-13 seats,” a Congress source said.
