Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka's major challenge is keeping the flock together

Hyderabad: The new Telangana state Congress Legislature Party leader, Mr Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, has a big challenge before him — to protect party MLAs from defecting.

He has to ensure that there is no repeat of what transpired in the earlier House, when 10 Congress MLAs, out of 21 that had won in the 2014 Assembly polls, had defected to the TRS.

The then Congress leadership had faced flak from its own party leaders over the defections.

The Congress has 19 MLAs in the newly formed Telangana Assembly. Despite speculation, Mr Vikramarka is confident no Congress MLA will defect to the TRS.

Telangana Congress leaders are repeatedly ruling out such speculation, saying these were mind games of the TRS. The leadership heaved a sigh of relief when all 19 MLAs attended the first CLP meeting.

The Telangana Congress leaders feel Mr Vikramarka’s selection as CLP leader was a good decision. If the TRS tries to create defections and take away Congress MLAs, they will get a strong weapon to attack the ruling party with, as Mr Vikramarka belongs to the SC Dalit community. He will be the leader of the Opposition in the Telangana assembly.

During the 2014 Assembly elections, Chief Minister Mr K. Chandrasekhar Rao had announced that if the TRS comes to power, a Dalit will be made first chief minister of Telangana state. But Mr Rao himself became chief minister.

Opposition parties have since been very critical of the TRS and the chief minister for not keeping his promise of making a Dalit chief minister. Against this backdrop, if the TRS tries to take away any Congress MLA, the party can attack the TRS and Mr Rao, saying he is against Dalits. The Congress will allege that neither did Mr Rao make a Dalit a chief minister and now he is not allowing a Dalit to be Opposition leader.