‘They want to teach Congress a lesson for ignoring genuine leaders.’
The Congress, which is leading the Maha Kutami (Grand Alliance) in Telangana Assembly elections, faces a piquant situation as about 40 of its leaders who aspired tickets but couldn’t get, have formed a front to contest as rebels. The rebels may not get a common symbol, but will have a common name for their platform to spoil the chances of Congress. The number of rebels may increase by next week.
“Save Congress,” or “Rajiv or Indira Congress” are some of the names under consideration for the front. What adds gravitas to this rebels’ front is the possibility of the ruling TRS lending a helping hand to some of them who can divide the traditional Congress votes in key constituencies so that the Opposition-sponsored candidates will lose.
Though most of them who turned up at a joint meeting of these rebels who could not make it to the three lists released by the AICC by Friday, were lightweights or leaders without much following, some of them are capable of splitting the party votes by around at least 5,000 votes, thus jeopardising the prospects of the official Congress candidates.
In 2014, as many as seven Congress candidates had lost the election by narrow margins—less than 5,000 votes—to the ruling TRS. In an Assembly of 119 seats, losing even half a dozen seats would affect the chances of the party coming to power, especially if the election is a keenly contested triangular one—among the TRS, Maha Kutami and BJP.
Former minister and Congress leader Bode Janardhan, who convened this front this weekend, told The Sunday Guardian on Saturday that they had to float this front to teach Congress leaders a lesson for ignoring the “right” and “genuine” leaders in allotment of tickets. “AICC in-charge general secretary R.C. Khuntia and TPCC president Uttam Kumar Reddy had sold the tickets,” he alleged.
Janardhan is backed by another senior Congress leader and former minister, G. Vijaya Rama Rao, who, too, expected a ticket till the last minute. They both said that there were allegations of change of money between the party leaders in Hyderabad and Delhi and demanded a probe into them. “There are audio tapes of bribery demands and Rahul Gandhi should respond to them,” said Rao.
They were referring to an audio tape in which three persons—one of them claiming to be representative of AICC screening committee chairman Bhakta Charan Das, and the other two representatives of a local Congress ticket aspirant Kyama Mallesh—talking about payment of Rs 3 crore for ensuring ticket from the high command. So far, Das hasn’t responded to the authenticity of this tape.
Janardhan and Vijaya Rama Rao have questioned the so-called three-point criteria fixed by Rahul Gandhi for allotment of tickets—1. barring those who had lost the last election by a margin over 30,000 votes, 2. Those who had joined the party recently and 3. Those who had lost three elections consecutively. “But, there are many who flouted these norms but got tickets,” said Janardhan.