Congress list to be out in next 48 hours

​New Delhi: The Congress has been preparing ground for the announcement of the party nominees for the ensuing Assembly elections. Before making the official announcement, the Congress counselled leaders from several districts asking them work together and help the Congress- TDP-TJS combine win the election even if they are not allotted tickets. The official announcement is likely on November 9 or 10.

The Congress has told the alliance partners about the seats they would be given. According to sources, the Congress offered 11 seats to Telugu Desam, eight to Telangana Jana Samithi, one to Telangana Inti Party and 3 to CPI. The Congress would contest in about 94 to 96 seats.

The Congress offered Wyra, Husnabad and Bellmapally seats to CPI. Similarly, TJS is learnt to have been given Jangaon from where Prof Kodandaram will contest, Malkajgiri Kapilvai Dileep Kumar, Medak Janardhan Reddy, Wardhanpet, Mabhabubanagar Rajender Reddy. Siddipet Bhavani Reddy, Dubbaka Rajender, and Ramagundam G Ilaiah Yadav. The AICC has also asked Kodandaram to come to Delhi on Friday for further talks.

The Congress has already, it is said, decided upon 54 seats and Thursday's announcement means it has zeroed in on 20 seats more after filtering the names. This was disclosed by the incharge of the party for Telangana, RC Khuntia, to the media on Thursday evening after a meeting with Sonia Gandhi.

The Screening Committee, which held marathon meetings for the last three days, arrived at this conclusion. A list of prospective candidates was forwarded to the CEC by the Screening Committee by 4 pm which was reviewed by the CEC of the party.

The AICC’s Screening Committee led by Bhakthacharan Das has been entrusted with the responsibility of counselling. Das held the counselling session on Thursday and discussed with about 50 leaders in the past three days.

The leaders who have been counselled on Thursday include Palvai Sravanthi, Premsagar Rao, Chandrasekhar, Manemma, Dhanamma, Srinivas, Obaidulla Kotwal, Addanki Dayakar, Patel Ramesh Redd, R Damodar Reddy, Aravind Reddy, Haripriya, B Karthika Reddy, Bandla Ganesh, Gayathri Ravi, and Vanama Venkateswar Rao.

They have enlisted the support of former minister Sabitha Reddy, DK Aruna, former MLA M Ranga Reddy, Ranga Reddy district Congress president K Mallesh, MLC K Rajagopal Reddy and others in the previous sessions.

The screening committee held the counselling session on Tuesday and Wednesday also. The committee was assisted by PCC president N Uttam Kumar Reddy, CLP former leader in Assembly K Jana Reddy, CLP leader in council Shabbir Ali and state affairs incharge RC Khuntia.

According to sources, Bhakthacharan Das explained the details of the reports of the surveys they have obtained and told the leaders the reasons for denial of tickets to some leaders.

Das said that those who were denied tickets would be given recognition after the formation of the government. He said, “I am giving assurance on behalf of the AICC president Rahul Gandhi. Consider my word as Rahul’s. Your cooperation would be rewarded.”

The AICC leaders were able to convince aspirant of Suryapet R Damodar Reddy and asked him to contest from the Nalgonda parliamentary constituency as ticket would be given to Patel Ramesh Reddy.

Several strong aspirants who have been denied the tickets have been told that they would be given MLC or nominated posts if they help for the victory of the official candidate.