Hyderabad: Leaders of the ruling TRS and the main Opposition party, the Congress, have started talks on “seat adjustments” regarding the MLC elections from the local bodies quota.
As per the initial talks, TRS appears to be willing to leave one seat each in Mahbubnagar and Ranga Reddy districts to the Congress, but the Congress is insisting on one more seat from Nalgonda where the TPCC president and the Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly hail from. The Congress leaders say that it is a matter of prestige for them to have the lone seat in the district in the party’s kitty.
There is unanimity that the Congress and TRS should field one candidate each from Mahbubnagar and Ranga Reddy districts, where elections would be held for two seats each. But when it comes to Nalgonda, the initial talks ended in a stalemate.
Congress leader K. Jana Reddy is believed to have spoken to a ‘top’ TS leader with a request that Nalgonda seat should be left to the Congress as the party bagged a majority of the ZPTCs, MPTCs and Municipal councillors, who are the voters in the MLC polls. However, TRS appears to be quite particular that the Nalgonda seat be left to it, pointing out that several ZPTCs and MPTCs from the Congress have switched over in the last one year.
TRS is proposing Tera Chinnapa Reddy as the party’s candidate, as promised to him by party chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao after he lost the Nalgonda Lok Sabha polls to the Congress in 2014.
Mr Jana Reddy and Mr Chinnapa Reddy are bitter rivals in the district, with the latter even filing several cases against the former. However any “seat adjustments” would depend on the “seal of approval” by Mr Chandrasekhar Rao, said one of the TRS MLCs who was part of the negotiations.
“We might come to understanding, but what will happen if the Left parties and the TD deicide to contest?” the MLC wondered.
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