Hyderabad, February 25: Lobbying for ticket to contest the forthcoming Legislative Council elections has intensified in the Congress. Several rounds of discussions by the district in-charge ministers and MLAs concerned took place with chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy and APCC president D Srinivas. Besides, the chief minister and the PCC chief have held separate meetings at the former’s camp office near Begumpet in shortlisting the contesting candidates.
Kiran Kumar Reddy is taking the elections as a prestige issue and is doing an exercise to prove his strength since elections for two of the 10 MLC seats under Local Bodies’ quota fall under Chittoor, his home district, and Kadapa, believed to be the stronghold of former MP and late YSR’s son Jagan Mohan Reddy. As part of the exercise to shortlist the contesting candidates’ names, the chief minister is talking to all the district in-charge ministers, MLAs, MLCs and others concerned. Ministers N Raghuveera Reddy, E Pratap Reddy, K Venkatakrishna Reddy, S Vijayaramaraju, TG Venkatesh, former minister JC Diwakar Reddy are among those who met the chief minister today.
The PCC president held discussions with several MLAs who include Kiran’s bete noires Ramachandra Reddy and Kuthuhalamma and sought their cooperation for the victory of party candidates. Minister D Prasada Rao (Srikakulam) and PCC disciplinary committee chairman Kantheti Satyanarayana Raju (West Godavari) are among those who met Srinivas this morning.
According to party sources, both Kiran Kumar Reddy and Srinivas are striving hard to retain the existing five seats each held by the Congress under MLAs’ and Local Bodies’ quota. They are, however, worried about the possible hostile moves from its own MLAs and representatives of local bodies who are supporting Jagan.
Participation of about two dozen MLAs on the last day of Jagan’s seven-day fast at Indira park made them worry more.
Meanwhile, pressures are mounting on both the leaders in respect of finalisation of candidates’ names. Besides a number of new aspirants, several incumbents who include senior Congress leaders Paladugu Venkata Rao, Mohammad Jani and others are making efforts to have another term as MLCs. Rumours are doing the rounds that Srinivas (Nizamabad district) himself is trying to contest the polls. However, former Speaker KR Suresh Reddy and former minister Mohd Shabber Ali, who also hail from Nizamabad, are also aspiring for a ticket, and could spoil Srinivas’s chances of contesting the polls.
After shortlisting the contesting candidates’ names, the chief minister is likely to leave for Delhi either on Saturday or Sunday.
–Agencies