The Communist Party of India has resolved to continue its negotiations with the Congress and the Telugu Desam Party leaderships to ensure that the party gets at least nine seats as part of the seat sharing arrangements for the forthcoming Assembly elections.
An emergency meeting of the CPI State secretariat held here under the chairmanship of party general secretary Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy on Sunday discussed about the delay in arriving at seat sharing agreement among the partners of the grand alliance comprising the Congress, the TDP, the CPI and M. Kodandaram-headed Telangana Jana Samiti. A section of CPI leaders are understood to have expressed the view that it was better for the party to go it alone in the event of the party not getting the seats in which it is strong.
The CPI leadership has accordingly decided to ask the Congress which is heading the grand alliance to resolve the impasse within the next couple of days so that the alliance partners could take up campaign in the respective constituencies. The meeting, according to sources, opined that the Congress’ reported decision to confine the number of seats to CPI to less than five was not justified.
The party, the leaders claimed, had strong presence in at least 30 Assembly constituencies where the votes cast for the CPI could be the deciding factor.
The party has, however, confined its demand to nine seats in spite of the strength it has in different constituencies, especially those in the erstwhile Nalgonda and Khammam districts as part of the coalition dharma.
“We can adjust if the seat strength is reduced by one or two. But it is unjustified to limit the number to just two or three,” a senior CPI leader told The Hindu .
The CPI has been insisting that it would field its nominees from Kothagudem, Wyra, Husnabad, Alair/Munugode, Bellampalli/Mancherial, Pinapaka, Devarakonda, Qutbullahpur/Medchal. “We are firm on contesting from at least seven of these seats. We want the Congress to resolve the seat sharing issue soon and put an end to the uncertainty,” the leader said.
