Hyderabad: After the announcement of the Lok Sabha election schedule, the headquarters of all political parties are witnessing a flurry of activities with thronging of ticket-seekers and their supporters. But the Telangana Telugu Desam Party headquarters, NTR Bhavan wore a a deserted look on Wednesday.
With only one day left before the election notification to be issued, the Telugu Desam has not taken any decision to contest from Telangana state. Telugu Desam national president and AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Wednesday said that the decision to contest or not was left to the party’s TSunit.
TD state President L. Ramana said they had not taken any decision on contesting in the Lok Sabha elections. He said they would discuss with party leaders and take a decision on the issue.
In the recent Assembly elections, the TD had an alliance with the Congress, the CPI and the Telangana Jana Samithi (TJS) to form the People’s Front and hoped of coming to power. Thus several Telugu Desam leaders queued up in NTR Bhavan to seek tickets, making requests that their constituencies were not given away in seat sharing.
After the defeat of the People’s front, both Congress and TD decided not to have any alliance in the Lok Sabha elections. In fact, the Telangana TD has no strong candidates to contest in the Lok Sabha elections. Moreover some senior TD party leaders are planning to join other parties and have lost hope on the future of their party. When asked, some senior leaders admitted that they were not interested in contesting in the Lok Sabha elections.
Meanwhile, Telangana TD party senior leaders’ former Minister E Peddi Reddy, former MP Nama Nageswara Rao and others are planning to join the Congress. Peddi Reddy wants to contest from Karimnagar and Nama wants to contest from Khammam Lok Sabha seats.
One thing seems to be certain that if the Telangana Telugu Desam does not contest in the elections, it will support the Congress indirectly.
