The Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) spokesperson Krishank Manne, in a video on Saturday, announced that he would not be contesting in the upcoming Telangana elections. A prominent leader of the Osmania University Joint Action Committee (OUJAC), Krishank worked his way up the ranks to party spokesperson after joining the Congress when Telangana was formed.
In a 10-minute-long Facebook Live entitled ‘The Last Word’, Krishank announced that he would not be filing his nomination for the upcoming polls. “I am taking this decision out of compulsion, out of weakness, please forgive me,” he said.
He added, “The situations which have come now, that if I would contest as a rebel candidate, it would be helpful for the sitting TRS MLA to win again, because there would be a possible vote division and the present MLA has not done good for the people (sic).”
Krishank was vying for the Secunderabad Cantonment ticket, which went to his father-in-law, Sarvey Satyanarayana, a former union minister. Krishank’s supporters staged a sit-in at Gandhi Bhavan, and Krishank announced that he would contest as an independent, and as a dissident, from the same constituency. He wondered how the party can field a man who was defeated thrice in the past.
A senior leader in the Congress, Sarvey Sathyanarayana had bagged the Malkajgiri MP seat in 2009 but has faced two defeats since – in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and again in the Warangal Assembly bye-election in 2015.
Earlier, supporters of Krishank, who was denied a ticket in 2014 too, accused Sathyanarayana of stonewalling his attempts to get a ticket. “There are more than a dozen people in the Congress who dream of being the Chief Minister of Telangana. Everyone knows that. Sarvey Sathyanarayana is the latest addition to that list,” a Congress leader on condition of anonymity had said earlier.
In his video, Krishank said that while he did not know if he would be in politics for the next five years (for the next elections), he would continue to fight.
Krishank had started a campaign called ‘Basti Nidra’ or ‘sleeping in the slum’ to understand the issues of the locals in the Secunderabad Cantonment area.