After the Telangana Congress failed to release their list of candidates for the upcoming Telangana elections on Saturday, their ally, the Telangana Jana Samithi (TJS) issued an ultimatum to the Congress, to release the list within two days or the party will walk out of Mahakutami, the grand alliance.
The ultimatum was set by TJS party president M Kodandaram late Saturday in an interaction with media persons after his meeting with TDP, CPI and Congress leaders. Kodandaram blamed the Congress for the delay in the release of the candidate lists that has impacted the campaigning efforts of alliance parties. The TJS party founder pointed out that there was no “road map” for seat-sharing, common manifesto and campaign strategy between the alliance parties.
“We have been maintaining patience and are part of Prajakutami only to ensure that the grand alliance is formed to defeat the KCR family rule. We hope seat-sharing and roadmap for the grand alliance will be finalised in a day or two,” Kodandaram told the Times of India. “If not, Congress can go alone with TTDP for the December 7 polls,” he added.
Kodandaram stated that his party would be contesting elections under its symbol of ‘matchbox’ and not under the Congress symbol of ‘hand’. However, the party had earlier expressed interest to contest the elections under a common election symbol for the Mahakutami, they had even approached the Telangana Election Commission seeking information on the same.
Kodandaram said that his party wanted to contest in those 39 seats where the Congress had no chance of winning. They identified these seats after conducting a survey of the assembly segments.
“It is only with the objective of defeating KCR-led family rule in Telangana that TJS agreed to accept even eight seats. But now, we insist that seats of our choice should be given to us,” said Kodandaram, who told media persons that the Congress has agreed to give Bellampalli, Aswaraopet, Medak, Dubbaka and Siddipet assembly seats to TJS. The party is also asking for tickets to contest from Miryalguda, Chennur, Ramagundam and Station Ghanpur assembly constituencies.