Telugu Desam Party president N. Chandrababu Naidu appeared to be buying more time to placate dissatisfied leaders of his party hailing from the Telangana, even as seat-sharing talks were continuing with the Bharatiya Janata Party till late on Friday evening.
There are at least half-a-dozen Assembly seats in and around Hyderabad and more in the Telangana districts where there are two or more aspirants from both the parties for each of the seats. Mr. Naidu was said to be under pressure and hence the tactical move to get more time.
Presspersons who were waiting for the scheduled release of the first list, since 8 p.m. were initially asked to come back in an hour or two, ostensibly because Mr. Naidu was still finalising the list. However, within 30 minutes, they were called again, saying the TDP chief would be making an announcement shortly.
But again after a delay, an aide of Mr. Naidu said that some National Democratic Alliance leaders were coming from New Delhi on Saturday and the list would be finalised only then. “Mr. Naidu was contacted by BJP leaders who requested him to wait a day more before making his first list public, so there will be no announcement tonight,” the aide announced.
Meanwhile, State BJP president G. Kishan Reddy on Friday said talks were still continuing with Telugu Desam on seat-sharing and were likely to be concluded on Saturday.
He said that senior party leader Prakash Javadekar was holding discussions with TDP leaders. While the BJP wanted 50 Assembly and nine Lok Sabha seats in Telangana, consensus was reached on 30 of the Assembly seats and ‘serious differences’ on the remaining 20 seats were yet to be sorted out.
Leaders of both the parties were currently focusing on Seemandhra seats and discussion on the remaining in Telangana would be taken up later.
