KCR’S call for cabinet meet fans rumours of early polls

HYDERABAD: Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has summoned a Cabinet meeting on Thursday leading to speculation that he may move to dissolve the state assembly to pave the way for early elections.

Rao has asked all his Cabinet colleagues to be available to attend the meeting and instructed all members of the legislative assembly belonging to his ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) to attend to work they may have, such as inauguration of any new projects, before Thursday, a TRS functionary said on condition of anonymity.

“At 6.45 am, KCR and his Cabinet colleagues will meet Governor ESL Narasimhan at Raj Bhavan to submit a copy of the cabinet resolution on dissolution of the state assembly,” the person said.

When contacted, a spokesman for the chief minister’s office confirmed that a Cabinet meeting had been scheduled for Thursday.

Speculation has been rife that Rao is moving to dissolve the assembly to advance the Telangana election to coincide with the November-december polls in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Mizoram. If the assembly were to run its course, the state elections would be held together with general elections next year.

The Telangana cabinet met in Hyderabad on Sunday amid buzz that the chief minister planned to dissolve the assembly and hold early elections but it ended without taking a decision on the issue. TRS leader and Lok Sabha MP from Karimnagar Vinod Kumar Boianapalli had told HT that for the Telangana elections to be held along with the polls in the other four states, the assembly would have to be dissolved before September 10. The Election Commission (EC), however, did not confirm if there was a cutoff date for the elections to be clubbed.

Senior Congress leader M Shashidhar Reddy said last week that that if Rao dissolved the assembly, his party would request EC to delay the Telangana polls until a revised voters’ list is published in January next year.

“We will request the EC not to club the Telangana polls with the elections to four states in December and delay them so that time is available for us to ensure voters’ lists are not doctored,” he said. “If that is not done, there will be scope for legal options and we are ready to adopt those. We will move the court.”

On Thursday, the Cabinet may also take some crucial administrative decisions such as announcement of interim relief for state government employees a pending pay revision.

Meanwhile, the TRS chief has decided to address a public meeting at Husnabad in Siddipet district on September 7. Dubbed “Praja Deevena Sabha” (meeting to seek blessings of the people), it could be the launching pad for Rao’s election campaign.

“We are planning to mobilise nearly 65,000 people for the public meeting. From here, the chief minister will appeal to the people to support the TRS in the next elections,” irrigation minister T Harish Rao, who represents the Siddipet assembly constituency, said. Rao added that the chief minister ill address 50 such public meetings in the next three months across the state.