Hyderabad: The state of affairs in the Telangana unit of the Congress, especially the party’s dismal showing in the Warangal Lok Sabha bypoll and second-rung leaders quitting the party and joining the TRS, has prompted the Congress high command to act.
AICC general-secretary Digvijay Singh has summoned three key leaders the TS unit of the party — TPCC president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy and Leaders of the Opposition in the Assembly and the Council K. Jana Reddy and Shabbir Ali — to Delhi on Monday evening to discuss the issues.
Mr Singh’s summons follows the party’s shocking loss, where its candidate did not even retain his deposit, and the even more shocking silence of Mr Uttam Kumar Reddy, who hasn’t even reacted to the results and reached out to the party leaders till now.
It is reliably learnt that after the party’s dismal showing in the Warangal bypoll, a few Congress leaders, including an MLC, have complained to the high command that “all is not well” in the Telangana Congress and the present leadership is unable to assert its authority. The complainants have said that some leaders, under the pretext of freedom of expression, have started airing their individual opinions creating confusion.
Citing Nalgonda MP Gutta Sukhender Reddy comment on forging an alliance with the Telugu Desam, the Congress MLC told the high command that, “It is everybody’s knowledge in TS that the TD was against the formation of Telangana but still, our leaders are proposing an alliance with it. This would mean that the people of TS forget about the Congress”.
In another complaint to the high command, a senior leader said that first it was due to party MP Renuka Chowdary’s local politics that Congress lost Yellendu MLA to TRS and recently, due to TRS pressure, the entire lot of Yellendu Municipal councilors, along with the chairperson joined the TRS.
“Where is the party mechanism to regularly talk to leaders and take everyone along,” the complainant said.
Mr Digvijay Singh is believed to have asked the top TPCC leaders for a report on party strategy on the 12 MLCs election from local body constituencies.
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