Almost all sitting legislators of the Telangana cabinet have been given a ticket to contest the polls yet again, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao said on Thursday, addressing reporters following the dissolution of the state Legislative Assembly. The CM released a list of 105 TRS candidates.
Only two MLAs were not given a ticket again — the Chennur seat in Mancherial district and Andole in Sangareddy district. "In five places, some discussion is still needed, so the candidates have not been announced yet. This includes Medchal, Malkajgiri, Choppadandi, Vikarabad and Warangal East," KCR said.
The Chief Minister assured the gathering that he would release a list of all 119 candidates within a week to ten days.
KCR himself has decided to recontest from his present seat at Gajwel, while his son and IT Minister KT Rama Rao will contest again from Sircilla constituency. Irrigation Minister Harish Rao retained his nomination for the seat from Siddipet.
While the TRS won 63 seats out of the total 119 in the legislative assembly during the 2014 elections, it presently has close to 90 MLAs in its party following a series of defections. In what could be seen as a gamble, many defectors have managed to retain their ticket and will contest the same seats, this time under the TRS banner.
Political circles have been abuzz for the last few weeks with talks of early polls. KCR had hinted at this and held two meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in August, announced sops and transferred top police and civil officials.
"Election will happen together with four other states. There should be no confusion," he said, hinting at Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Mizoram.
Telangana Governor ESL Narasimhan dissolved the state Assembly on a recommendation by the state cabinet on Thursday.
KCR called on the Governor and presented the resolution of the Council of Ministers, recommending the dissolution of the first Legislative Assembly of Telangana state, a statement from Raj Bhavan said.
While accepting the recommendation, the Governor requested KCR and his council of ministers to continue in office as a caretaker government.
KCR also told reporters on Thursday that he personally spoke to the Chief Election Commissioner and discussed the entire issue at length with top officials of the state government.
"In our manifesto, with authority I can say that we fulfilled 99.5% of our promises. We introduced many schemes that weren't even mentioned in the manifesto, like Rythu Bandhu. In our four-and-a-half-year rule, there not a single incident of communal violence," he said.
KCR also lashed out at the Congress, the opposition party in the state, and said that they were the 'biggest enemy' of Telangana.
"We took 42 decisions within the first month after assuming power. We are working for the progress of the state and we took decisions in the interest of the state," KCR said, expressing confidence that people would vote them back to power.