Hyderabad: Senior Congress leaders Marri Shashidhar Reddy and Ponnala Lakshmiah were not named even in the second list of candidates released by the All India Congress Committee on Wednesday.
The AICC released the second list of candidates for the Telangana state assembly elections, clearing about 10 names; the names of Marri Shashidhar Reddy (Sanathnagar) and former PCC president Ponnala Lakshmiah (Jangaon) were absent. Both of them were defeated in the last general election.
Though Mr Ponnala met several senior leaders of the AICC in Delhi, it has not helped. The Jangaon constituency, it is believed, was allotted to the Congress’s ally, the Telangana Jana Samiti (TJS), but the TJS does not want to contest from Jangaon.
The Congress has cleared another 10 constituencies taking the total number to 75. Dr Sravan Dasoju and P. Vishnuvardhan Reddy were worried that their names had not appeared in the first list and suspected that the party had given those constituencies to the TD.
The Khanapur announcement may be controversial. Party workers from the constituency had gone on an indefinite hunger strike for three days last week because they did not want Ramesh Rathod to be their candidate, calling him a “parachute” leader, who had joined the party recently.
They wanted Azmeera Hari Naik to be the candidate as he has been in the party for a long time.
