Contrary to all expectations the elections for 10 MLC seats under the Assembly quota turned out to be a tame affair with the ruling Congress, after dilly dallying till the last minute, chickened out to field a sixth party nominee and thus paved way for a unanimous elections.
All the 10 candidates — five from the Congress, three from the YTDP and one each of TRS and YSRCP — were elected unanimously as no other candidate filed the nomination except them by 3 pm today, the last day of filing nominations. The last ay for withdrawal is March 14 and polling, if necessary, would have taken place on March 21. However since no other candidate except the tem had entered the fray, they are deemed to have been elected unanimously.
Those unanimously elected are P.Sudhakar Reddy, Laxmi Shiva Kumari ( both sitting members), Shabbir Ali, K. Veerabhadra Swamy and T. Santosh Kumar ( all belonging to Congress); Yanamala Ramakrishnudu, Shamantakamani and Mohammed Saleem ( all Telugu Desam) and Md.Mahmood Ali of TRS and Adireddy Appa Rao of YSRCP. All of them would be officially declared elected unopposed after the last date of withdrawal on March 14.
While the TRS and YSRCP had no hurdles in the selection of their respective party nominees, suspense and tension gripped the Congress and Telugu Desam parties with too many aspirants staking their claims for nomination. After much haggling and changes, both the parties finalized their respective nominees though not without triggering off heartburns among those who had missed the bus.
The TDP and TRS bosses have sought the support and cooperation other parties like the CPI , CPM, BJP, MIM and Lok Satta. Realising that these parties besides the YSRCP would be forced to sweat it out to get the required number of votes for each of their party nominees to elected, Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy wanted to exploit the predicament of these parties and planned to field a sixth candidate.
If the Congress, which could easily win five seats based on its strength, decided to field a sixth candidate as was planned by the Chief Minister, then the TRS and YSRCP nominees would have been forced to move heaven and earth to ensure the victory of their respective nominees as these parties more than the TDP would have been affected by the Congress plan.
The suspense over the Congress plans on the sixth candidate warmed up the political atmosphere. The C M and APCC President even sought the permission of the Congress High Command to give the green signal for fielding the sixth candidate. The Delhi bosses are understood to have left it to the better judgement of the state leaders and take an appropriate decision. The CM and PCC President discussed the tricky issue with ministers and senior Congress leaders. After handing over the B forms to party nominees at Gandhi Bhavan, the PCC Chief held consultations with party leaders about the sixth nominee. Even the Chief Minister was enaged in similar exercise with some of his cabinet colleagues at Secretariat.
However with the auspicious time of 1.30 p.m fast approaching, the C M, Deputy CM, PCC Chief, and ministers reached the Assembly premises to complete the formality of the party nominees to file their nominations. Even as the five Congress nominees were busy filing their nomination papers, the Chief Minister continued to ponder over the idea about the sixth candidate. He held closed door discussion with some of his confidants in the Deputy Speaker’s chambers in the Assembly premises. However, at the last moment the Chief Minister seemed to have developed cold feet and did not wanted to take a risk in fielding a sixth candidate.
As a matter of fact the five Congress nominees seemed to have also conveyed their own apprehensions about having a smooth sailing in the event of a sixth candidate entered the fray on behalf of the Congress. Their worry was that if some among the ruling party members themselves indulge in cross voting, they might also be affected instead of the TRS or YSRCP nominees. All these factors and the chances of even the Congress being pushed to the corner seemed to have made the Chief Minister not take the risk of fielding the sixth candidate. This came as big relief to the five Congress nominees more than the opposition nominees.
–Agencies