Hyderabad: Senior leader V. Hanumantha Rao ended his bid to make it to the Rajya Sabha for the fourth time on Saturday with he and the Congress Legislature Party deciding not to contest the biennial polls for two seats from Telangana.
During a lengthy meeting of the CLP, in which Mr Hanumantha Rao was also present, the political scenario was discussed and it was announced that the Congress will not field a candidate.
Mr Hanumantha Rao disclosed that he was keen to contest as he was expecting Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao to honour the Congress request to support him, thereby reciprocating the Congress gesture of supporting TRS candidate K. Kesava Rao two years ago.
“Sensing that he may get a telephone call from Sonia Gandhi, KCR pre-empted the move and announced two candidates from TRS. In such a scenario, there was no use of my contesting. I am withdrawing my bid,” Mr Hanumantha Rao told the media after the CLP meeting.
Mr Jana Reddy said that if the Congress had fielded a candidate it would have further vitiated the political atmosphere in the state. In a related development, Mr Srinivas met Mr Chandrasekhar Rao and submitted his resignation from the post of adviser to the government on inter-state affairs.
The Chief Minister immediately accepted the resignation. Mr Srinivas will be filing his nomination papers on May 31. As per the rules, at the time of filing papers, the candidate shall not hold office of profit which will disqualify him at the scrutiny of papers.
