Top leadership of Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee and CPI were engaged in a crucial meeting on Friday night to thrash out minor irritants to arrive at an electoral alliance for the Assembly and Parliamentary elections.
The two sides are likely to agree on one Lok Sabha and 11 Assembly seats. TPCC president Ponnala Lakshmaiah had a brief meeting with CPI secretary D. Raja and State secretary K. Narayana at Jangaon where the former had gone to campaign for the party’s candidates.
They drove down to Hyderabad for further consultations to zero in on the constituencies. TPCC working president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, campaign committee chairman C. Damodar Raj Narasimha and former Minister K. Jana Reddy joined Mr. Lakshmaiah at the meeting.
The CPI leadership had initially staked claim for the Nalgonda and Khammam parliamentary constituencies and 17 assembly seats.
They had demanded the Khammam, Wyra, Pinapaka and Yellendu (Khammam), Munugode and Devarakonda (Nalgonda), Wardhannapet or Mahabubabad (Warangal), Narsapur or Patancheru (Medak), Wanaparthy or Nagarkurnool (Mahabubnagar), Malkajgiri, Bahadurpura and Chandrayangutta (Hyderabad), Ibrahimpatnam or Uppal or Maheshwaram (Ranga Reddy). Sources close to the TPCC chief maintained that the Congress leadership was willing to concede one Lok Sabha and a maximum of 11 assembly seats. The two sides are said to be wrangling over Kothagudem, Mahabubabad and Husnabad seats. The Kothagudem seat is represented by the CPI while the remaining two are held by the Congress MLAs.
A top TPCC functionary said the CPI demand was high and the two sides could re-work by scaling down the number of seats.
The Congress Central Election Committee is expected to meet again on March 31 to take a final call on the list of short listed candidates. Indications available suggest that the first list would be out on April 2 or 3.
Meanwhile, there was no clarity on whether the Congress party was engaged in any consultations with the TRS leadership on possible alliance in the elections. A senior TPCC office-bearer told The Hindu that the talks were at least not being held at the level of the TPCC president. “May be the high command was in direction consultations with the top leadership of TRS,” sources said.
