Telangana Jana Samithi looks for truck with BJP

The new party is unhappy with Congress’ offer of seats.

Dissatisfied with the Congress offer of lesser number of seats, the Telangana Jana Samithi (TJS), a newly born party, is looking at an alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP) in the coming Assembly elections in Telangana. TJS is headed by Prof M. Kodandaram, who led the Telangana political parties’ joint action committee (T-JAC) during the statehood agitation for five years, between 2009 and 2014.

Of the total 119 Assembly seats, TJS wants a minimum of 30 seats, but the Congress is not willing to give them more than three to five seats, which is unacceptable to Prof Kodandaram. He held a round of talks with local BJP leaders last week and they were ready to give a larger number of seats to the TJS, sources from both the sides told this newspaper.

Till recently, TJS was asked to join a grand alliance led by Congress and some preliminary talks were held between them through some intermediaries—CPI leaders. So far, the Congress, TDP and CPI have decided to fight together the elections to unseat the ruling TRS and hinted that the alliance would be further expanded by adding TJS and a couple of other smaller parties.

When the issue of seat adjustments came up for discussion at the AICC war room in Delhi, it was decided that Congress should contest not less than 90 seats, while leaving the remaining 28 to the allies. In the first round of talks, TDP submitted a list of 20 and the CPI 12 seats. The Congress leadership is ready to allot only 10-15 seats to the TDP and three each to CPI and TJS.

Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee ( TPCC) president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy informed about this decision to TJS leaders through CPI state secretary Chada Venkat Reddy who is mediating between the two parties.

Prof Kodandaram held a meeting with his party seniors last week and decided to reject the offer, which is far below his expectations.

BJP leaders have showed interest in having an alliance and offered more seats to TJS. Prof Kodandaram closeted with BJP legislature party leader G. Kishan Reddy on Thursday and discussed the possibility of joining hands in the polls. In fact, the BJP national leadership is in touch with Prof Kodandaram for the last few months, for floating an alliance against the TRS and Congress.

Sources close to Kodandaram told this newspaper that a BJP MP from Northern Karnataka met the former and offered more seats, if the alliance materialises. “We are open to any alliance and we cannot accept the big brother attitude of the Congress in offering seats to us. We have our own support base and mass following and it is fair to seek at least 30 seats,” said a senior TJS leader.

BJP Telangana president K. Laxman told The Sunday Guardian on Saturday that he was hoping more parties would join hand with his party in the coming weeks. “We alone can provide alternative to the TRS in Telangana and our front will emerge stronger and bigger in the coming days,” he said, without going into details of the front. Union Home Ministry on Wednesday approved hike in the salaries of Special Police Officers ( SPOs) in Jammu and Kashmir amid reports that more than 40 SPOs have resigned in South Kashmir after appeals by their parents to do so.

There is a conflict of interest between the SPOs and the regular cops in the state police. Most of the anti-terror operations post 2016 unrest, SPOs have been on the frontline in these operations, even as they get only a week-long training for the handling of fire arms. According to the police officials, at present there are more than 35,000 SPOs engaged with the department.

Recently, the State Administrative Council (SAC) has enhanced ex-gratia for the next kin of regular state police officials to Rs 70 lakh and that of the SPOs to Rs