Hyderabad: TRS working president K.T. Rama Rao’s comments on Congress Lok Sabha candidates have irked the TRS leaders.
Reacting to the Congress’ list of candidates for the Lok Sabha elections, Mr Rama Rao said the Congress was facing a leadership crisis, which is why it had selected defeated MLA candidates, and that the candidates are worthless.
He said that people have no reason to elect those who they have already rejected in the Assembly elections that were held three months ago. He referred to the defeated candidates as “invalid coins” and “torn currency notes” and said that invalid coins cannot become valid again.
On the same count, the TRS’ list of Lok Sabha candidates also contains the “invalid coins”. TRS Khammam Lok Sabha candidate Nama Nageswara Rao had lost from the Khammam Assembly segment as a Telugu Desam candidate at the recent elections. He joined the TRS only a few hours before he was announced as the Khammam candidate.
TRS candidate for Peddapalli Venkatesh Nethakani had contested as a Congress nominee from the Chennur Assembly constituency in the recent elections and lost. He, too, joined the TRS just a few hours prior to the announcement of his candidature.
Considering the situation, Congress leaders are now taking the liberty to use Mr Rama Rao’s criticism against his own party.
TPCC president and Nalgonda Lok Sabha Congress candidate N. Uttam Kumar Reddy asked the TRS to explain their “invalid coins”, and TRS leaders have found themselves in quite an embarrassing situation because of this.
The Congress’ Lok Sabha list contains eight such candidates who lost in the recent Assembly elections. The TRS Lok Sabha list also contains two such candidates. The BJP has announced 10 candidates in its first list in Telangana, of whom 2 candidates were defeated in the recent Assembly elections.
