Congress Keeps Telangana 2nd List of Candidates for LS Polls Pending

Hyderabad: The second meeting of the Congress’ Central Election Committee (CEC) on Monday kept the second list of candidates for the Lok Sabha election from Telangana pending. Party sources said the CEC will take up the selection of candidates from Telangana in its third meeting to be held after March 15.

The sources said the CEC meeting did not discuss the candidates from Telangana on Monday as TPCC chief and Chief Minister A.Revanth Reddy, Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka and minister N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, who are also the members of CEC, were busy with official programmes in Bhadrachalam and could not make it to the meeting.

The CEC meeting on Monday discussed the selection of candidates from Karnataka, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, and Madhya Pradesh, it is learnt.

The CEC in its first meeting held in New Delhi on March 8, had declared the candidates for four Lok Sabha constituencies in Telangana who included Challa Vamshi Chand Reddy (Mahabubnagar), P Balram Naik (Mahabubabad), Kunduru Raghuveer Reddy (Nalgonda) and Suresh Kumar Shetkar (Zaheerabad).

Although the CEC meeting discussed probable candidates for 11 Lok Sabha constituencies in Telangana on March 8, it finalised and announced the candidates for only four constituencies.

The CEC is now expected to meet again between March 16 and 18 to finalise the candidates for the remaining 13 constituencies in Telangana.