Cong strikes caste balance in first list for Telangana
NEW DELHI: As many as 23 members of the influential upper caste Reddy community figured on the Congress’s first list of 65 candidates for the December 7 assembly elections in Telangana. The party has sought to strike a balance in the list released on Monday, accommodating all the key castes.
While there are 13 candidates from the backward classes, 10 have been fielded from the Madiga (Scheduled Caste) community. The state has 119 seats in the assembly, of which the Congress is fighting 94 as part of a grand alliance or Maha Kootami.
The Congress is hoping to ride on the “anti-incumbency” factor against the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS). It is confident of scoring a “surprise victory” despite chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao having dissolved the assembly nearly six months ahead of the schedule to capitalise on what he believes is the “tremendous goodwill” for his party.
Reddy community constitutes around 6% of the state’s population and has dominated the politics in both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh for decades.
There are many claimants to the chief minister’s post in the Congress with state party chief N Uttam Kumar Reddy and working president A Revanth Reddy leading the race.
Revanth Reddy, who had quit the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in October last year to join the Congress, has virtually projected himself as the party’s chief ministerial candidate.
The party has been struggling to find a powerful Reddy leader after the death of YS Rajasekhara Reddy, former chief minister of undivided Andhra Pradesh.
The division of Andhra Pradesh hurt the Congress. It has even failed to cash in on the creation of Telangana, which happened under its rule in 2014. The party got politically wiped out in Andhra Pradesh, where it could not even win a single seat out of 25 Lok Sabha seats in 2014 elections. The state has been a stronghold of the party.
The Congress’s claims of being a champion of the Telangana cause failed to cut ice with the people, who voted the TRS to power in the 2014 assembly elections.
Former Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, who had promised a separate Telangana state at a public meeting in Karimnagar district during an election campaign in 2004, will address a public meeting at Warangal on November 23.
Congress president Rahul Gandhi will also undertake a two-day visit of the state from November 28. He will address election rallies in Mehboobnagar and Khammam.
Among others, the Congress has also fielded four candidates each from the Scheduled Tribes and the minority communities.
Political observers said the Congress leadership has done a “fine balancing act” in its first list. “They have done a fairly good job and accommodated all the key sections of the society on its list. They could not have done a better job,” said Hyderabadbased political analyst C Narasimha Rao.
He said the Congress’s main target is to defeat the TRS and for that, it has not shied away from striking a seat-sharing deal with the TDP, the Telangana Jana Samithi and the Communist Party of India.