Hyderabad: Even before results of the Assembly polls are announced on Friday, former Pradesh Congress Committee president Botsa Satyanarayana has conceded defeat of his party in Seemandhra.
But in the to-be state of Telangana, former minister and Greater Hyderabad Congress Committee president Danam Nagendar is confident that the Congress will sweep all before it.
The decision to carve out the new state of Telangana has changed the fate of the Congress in Andhra Pradesh.
In Seemandhra, which opposed the bifurcation, the Congress is likely to be wiped out, and in Telangana it is not assured of a victory even though it created the separate state.
There is no tension among the Congress leaders in Seemandhra, who are resigned to their fate, and are only hoping they don’t have to forfeit their deposits.
Mr Satyanarayana, who spoke to the media at Indira Bhavan on Thursday, accepted the defeat of the Congress in Seemandhra. He said that all political parties have made the Congress the scapegoat. They all gave letters consenting to the bifurcation of the state but only the Seemandhra Congress has paid the price for it.
In Telangana, it is touch and go. The strong showing by the TRS in the local body elections has got many Congress leaders worried about their political future. Yet, Mr Nagendar stoutly maintains that the Congress will come to power in Telangana.
He told the media at Gandhi Bhavan on Thursday that the Assembly results in Telangana will prove the surveys wrong. He said the Congress will get 65 Assembly seats, with 16 Assembly seats coming from Hyderabad and Rangareddy districts.
The TRS has won many seats in the local bodies polls in Karimnagar, Adilabad and Nizamabad districts.
Telangana PCC president Ponnala Lakshmaiah, former deputy chief minister Damodar Raja Narasimha, TPCC Working Committee president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, TPCC Manifesto Committee chairman and former minister D. Sridhar Babu, former minister K. Jana Reddy, former PCC president D. Srinivas, former ministers J. Geetha Reddy, Shabbir Ali and former Assembly speaker K.R. Suresh Reddy are among the priminent Congress leaders contesting for the Assembly seats in Telangana.
