Power tussle within the Telangana Congress continues and the MLC elections under the Local Authorities Constituencies, to be held soon, have emerged as another platform where the leaders are trying to undermine each other’s supremacy than winning a seat, the chances of which are almost nil given their insufficient numbers.
A recent meeting of the party saw a section strongly arguing for putting up the party candidates despite slim chances of winning even one to ensure they are not out of people’s mind in the contests. “I am all for a contest even though we have slim chances of bagging any seat,” a senior leader argued in the meeting. The party leadership was apparently of the opinion that they don’t have the sufficient numbers to win a seat in any district due to the poor representation of the party at the local body elections.
With the pressure mounting from a section, TPCC president Revanth Reddy constituted a committee led by former Deputy Chief Minister Damodar Rajanarasimha and former Minister G. Chinna Reddy for eliciting opinions of all stakeholders to take a final decision. Mr. Rajanarasimha said on Saturday that the issue has been discussed and also how the ruling party had snatched nearly 50% of its elected representatives with power and money. “A report would be submitted in two days for the high command to take a final decision.”
12 MLCs to complete term
Twelve sitting MLCs under the Local Authorities Constituencies will complete their term on January 3, 2022, including pro-tem chairman V. Bhoopal Reddy, Patnam Mahender Reddy, K. Damodar Reddy, Shambipur Raju, Kasireddy Narayana Reddy, Kalvakuntla Kavitha, Tera Chinnapa Reddy, Pochampally Srinivas Reddy, T. Bhanu Prasad, Balasani Laxminarayana, Puranam Satish and Naradasu Laxman. All these MLCs represent the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS).
With its strong numbers, TRS is all set to retain the 12 seats unless there is a huge cross-voting by the elected representatives of local bodies who form the electorate. Out of the 142 Urban Local Bodies (ULBs), 130 are in the TRS kitty. The party has also won 449 of the 538 ZPTCs, 431 of 537 MPPs, 3,571 of 5,816 MPTC posts.
The ruling party is way ahead of others bagging 1,679 out of the 2,849 municipal wards and 117 of 125 municipal chairpersons’ posts. The party also secured 333 of 661 municipal corporator posts across the State and also 13 municipal mayor posts.
