Congress’ first list of candidates for Telangana poll kicks up a storm as leaders deprived of tickets flay leadership

Hyderabad: The first list of Congress candidates for the coming Telangana Assembly election has evoked criticism from aspirants who failed to get a berth. The party announced the list of 65 nominees late on Monday for the 7 December election to the 119-member Assembly. Even as AICC in-charge of party affairs in the state R C Khuntia on Tuesday said the nominees for the remaining segments would be declared by 15 November, some aspirants who failed to get the ticket aired their disappointment publicly. [caption id=“attachment_5406391” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. AFP[/caption] Bikshapati Yadav, former MLA from Serilingampalli seat Hyderabad, was disappointed as his constituency had been allotted to the TDP, a partner in the Congress-led alliance. Saying that he has already conducted a ‘padayatra’ in the constituency and wondered whether this was the recognition one gets for having worked for the party. “Is this the result the party gives for having served it?” he asked talking to reporters here. Congress president Rahul Gandhi had earlier talked about not giving tickets to those “who land in a parachute” at the time of elections but “what happened now”, he said. Former minister Ponnala Lakshmaiah, who had also served as the PCC president, rushed to Delhi as his name did not find a place in the first list. Prominent backward classes leader R Krishnaiah sharply criticised the Congress, accusing it of not giving adequate number of seats to those belonging to backward classes. He claimed that leadership from backward classes was not being allowed to grow. TRS has also not done justice to the backward classes, he alleged. Khuntia, however, said Congress would give more seats to backward classes than the TRS. “(On) the talk about backward communities, KCR (TRS president K Chandrasekhar Rao) declared 105 and gave 19. We have given 13 (in 65). In the remaining seats, we will give more seats to backward communities than KCR,” he said. Talking to reporters in Delhi, he also said, the complete list, in his view, will come by day after tomorrow (November 15)". Congress is leading the “grand alliance” in which the TDP, the CPI and Telangana Jana Samiti (TJS) are the other partners. The party has decided to leave 25 seats - 14 to the TDP, eight to TJS and three to the CPI.