Congress party’s alliance with the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) cost it badly and several leaders are making it clear to the party that the alliance should not continue in the Parliament elections as it would give another weapon to Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao to target the party and rake up the sentiment again.
Senior leader Komatireddy Venkat Reddy also expressed similar views and said he is personally against the alliance even during the Assembly polls as he was aware of Mr. Rao using it to his advantage. In fact, the entire election campaign was made to revolve around Mr. Rao and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu -- smartly by the former -- relegating the real issues to the background.
No counter from Cong.
In fact, Mr. Rao also successfully injected fear among people that Mr. Naidu would rule the State from Amravati and Telangana’s interests would be compromised by the Congress. People believed his argument and there was hardly any counter from the Congress to reject the argument, he said.
These arguments were put forth by a section of the leaders at the Congress party review meeting of the parliamentary constituencies with the senior leaders.
Mr. Venkata Reddy also said the inordinate delay in the announcement of the candidates and endless meetings for sharing the seats had sent a wrong signal to people and Mr. Rao also raked up the same issue arguing that parties that can’t even arrive at a consensus on candidates cannot take administrative decisions if voted to power.
Congress would do much better without TDP’s alliance was the view of some leaders. In fact, Madhira MLA Bhatti Vikramarka too expressed similar views in an informal meet with media men on Saturday. He said the alliance was looked at with suspicion and Mr. Rao used the confusion in seat sharing to his advantage and also spread lies that Mr. Naidu would use Congress against Telangana.
At the same time, he agreed that Congress benefited in a few pockets due to the alliance.
Seniors eye LS seats
Meanwhile, senior leaders who lost in the Assembly elections seem to be eying the Parliament seats too though the party has not so far taken a decision on whether the defeated leaders should be given an opportunity or not.
Mr. Venkata Reddy made his intentions clear that he would contest from Nalgonda constituency if the party high command agrees. There seems to be tough competition for Nalgonda, Mahabubnagar, Malkajgiri, Mahabubabad, Peddapalli and Adilabad seats where the Congress feels it has a greater chance of winning.
