Hyderabad, August 03: The Congress candidates who lost the byelection have only one demand: The party should start the process for creation of Telangana state.
After explaining to PCC chief D Srinivas, who himself was a loser in Nizamabad Urban, the factors that had led to their defeat, they decided to meet party president Sonia Gandhi and request her to take a clear stand on Telangana and initiate steps in that direction without any further delay.
They are understood to have told Srinivas that if urgent measures are not initiated, there would be a further erosion in the party’s support base.
Except Md Ali Shabber (Yellareddy) and Lakshman Rao (Dharmapuri), all other Congress nominees attended the meeting with Srinivas. Though the ministers who were entrusted with the responsibility of helping the party candidates win in the 12 constituencies were also asked to attend the meet, only J Geetha Reddy and Sabita Indra Reddy turned up.
The Congress nominees told Srinivas that honouring the party direction they had contested the election though the mood was in favour of the MLAs who had resigned. Some of them described the verdict as a silent revolution since many of them were under the impression that they were going to win. They said they were totally taken aback by the verdict and, for the first time, they could not sense the pulse of people.
A Indrakaran Reddy, who lost Sirpur, reportedly pointed out that apart from the Telangana sentiment, MLC Prema Sagara Rao had sabotaged whatever dim prospects he had and demanded that the party take action against him. Huzurabad candidate V Krishna Mohan blamed former Congress MLA K Saireddy for spoiling his chances and sought action against him. KK Mahender Reddy said he was surprised by the loss at Sircilla since TRS’ KT Rama Rao just scraped through in the 2009 election.
Srinivas, however, would not say with what request he would approach the party high command. “You wait and see,” was his reply to reporters’ probing questions.
Asked whether he would submit a report to the Srikrishna panel on behalf of the Congress, he said he would oblige if the panel asked him to do so. “I will request the panel members to take measures that will benefit the people of Telangana,” he said.
Srinivas, for his part, would submit a detailed report to the party leadership. He obtained signatures of all the 11 contestants on the report to be submitted to the party high command.
Srinivas later said the recent byelections were entirely different from the 2008 bypoll to 16 Assembly seats. This time, the people wanted to return those who had resigned for Telangana cause. “There are no lessons to be learnt in this election,” an exasperated Srinivas said as reporters kept grilling him with the question.
He avoided questions on Jagan Mohan Reddy’s defiance of the partyline by putting a finger on his lips, indicating that they should not ask such questions.
–Agencies