Hyderabad: The Congress’ policy of nominating candidates in the current election season appears to be vary between different states.
Apart from Telangana state, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Mizoram and Chhattisgarh will be going for Assembly elections around December.
In Madhya Pradesh, Congress president Rahul Gandhi has said that those who joined from other parties would not be given tickets. “We welcome them but they will not be made candidates,” he has said.
That policy may not be implemented in Telangana state. If it were to be enforced here, leaders who joined the Congress recently like Mr A. Revanth Reddy from the Telugu Desam, Dr Nagam Janardhan Reddy from the BJP, Mr Vanteru Pratap Reddy, Mr K Madan Mohan Rao and Legislative Council member Bhoopathi Reddy from the TRS would not have got nominations.
According to state Congress sources, many such leaders find a place in the candidates list. Mr Revanth Reddy was made as TPCC working president on Wednesday.
In other states, the Congress leadership said it would give tickets to those who are active on social media. The key requirements are that the candidates should have 5,000 followers on Twitter, 15,000 likes on Facebook and set up WhatsApp groups with booth level workers.
Mr Rahul Gandhi said tickets would not be given to leaders who joined the Congress only to contest the elections and would quit party if they were defeated. Despite this, some TRS leaders who were denied tickets are planning to join the Congress.
Among these are TRS leaders like former MP Ramesh Rathod, Konda Surekha and Konda Murali who were denied tickets. According to Mr Rahul Gandhi policy for some other states, they would not have got the tickets if they were to join the Congress.
