The ruling Telugu Desam party is trying to take advantage of the anxiety of Telangana Rashtra Samiti over the coming by elections to 12 assembly seats in Telangana region. While the TRS was hoping that all the MLAs who had resigned in support of Telangana state will be re-elected unanimously and no other party will enter the fray, Congress and Telugu Desam have queered the pitch by declaring their intentions to contest the by elections.
While TRS and other pro Telangana organizations have made the request to Congress state leadership not to contest the by elections and let the same members return to the assembly in the larger interest of the Telangana cause, the state Congress leaders had bluntly told the TRS to go to their high command. According to the sources the TRS leaders have been told that the decision to contest or not to contest by elections will be taken by the high command and not at the state level.
Sources said that the Congress game plan is to bargain hard with the TRS before granting them any concession. The party wants TRS to support the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government at the centre and be supportive of the state government in the state.
Telangana leaders in Congress are continuing to be divided on the issue of by elections. While most of the leaders are against contesting the bypolls, quite a few including the state Congress president D Srinivas were keen to contest. Hectic activity has begun in Congress as well as Telugu Desam party to weigh the options. While D Srinivas met the CM Ken Rosaiah and some other senior leaders on Wednesday to discuss the issue, TDP President N Chandrababu Naidu also held parleys with party's senior leaders from Telangana region.
Two senior TDP leaders from Telangana N Janardhan Reddy and T Devender Goud later told the media that if Congress contests the by elections, TDP will have no option but to follow the suit as it can not stay away from the electoral battle. "Ours is the strongest party in Telangana. We won 80% of the seats we had contested where as the TRS contested 45 seats and could win only 10 seats", Janardhan Reddy said.
Janardhan Reddy said that their stand of not quitting assembly was vindicated. "We had told the TRS at the time itself that there is no use of resigning individually. We can create a constitutional crisis only if the MLAs of all the parties resign. If a few members resign, we will be causing only by elections. We have been proved right", he said.
By elections are due before end of August in assembly constituencies of Sirpur, Mancherial, Chennur, Warangal West, Yellareddy, Nizamabad Urban, Siddipet, Huzurabad, Dharmapuri, Korutla, Sircilla and Vemulawada. They fell vacant after 10 MLAs of TRs and one each of TDP and BJP had resigned in support of demand for Telangana state. State Congress president D Srinivas was keen to contest from Nizamabad Urban constituency which he had lost to the BJP in last general elections.
