Hyderabad: Congress local leadership to decide on alliances

Hyderabad: Congress is likely to leave the issue of alliances to the District Congress Committees in the municipal elections to be held in next month as it may not have alliances at the State level.

The party may follow the procedure adopted in the rural local body elections on the issue of alliance. In the rural local bodies polls the party left the decision on alliances with other parties to the DCCs.

Leaders of the party said that there may not be any State level alliance with other parties like Telangana Telugu Desam, Telangana Jana Samithi and Communist Party of India.

The Congress is keeping away from those parties after the general elections to the Assembly. In the Assembly polls, the Congress had alliance with TDP, TJS and the CPI. However, the alliance was broken in the Parliament elections.

Since then the Congress has not conducted any joint programmes with those parties. The CPI had supported the Telangana Rashtra Samithi in the Huzurnagar by-poll.

They said that the DCC, Town Congress leaders, local MLAs, MPs, and contested candidates to the Parliament and Assembly seats would be given freedom in deciding alliance with Telugu Desam and Telangana Jana Samithi as they know better about the strength of those parties locally. Alliance could be made in each municipality and corporation.

The DCCs and the TCCs may take decision as per the prevailing political conditions in each municipality and corporation. They may leave some seats to the TDP and TJS if their strength helps Congress to win majority of the seats.

The PCC leaders have taken the decision not to have State level alliance with TDP and TJS as there are different opinions on the issue. Soon after the end of Assembly and Parliament elections, few Congress leaders have alleged that alliance with Telugu Desam had damaged the party interests. They said that the PCC had foisted the alliance with Telugu Desam on the leaders without taking the consequences into consideration and if the Congress had fought alone, it could have got more number of seats in the Assembly polls.

Due to the differences on the alliance with Telugu Desam, the Congress stayed away from it and gone to Parliament polls alone. Even in the rural local body elections, the PCC did not take any initiative to have alliance.

At the same time, there are leaders in the party who favor the alliance with Telugu Desam and Telangana Jana Samithi. They say that it would be better for the Congress to have tactical alliance with Telugu Desam and TJS.

Taking these diversified opinions on the alliance issue, the PCC has more or less decided to leave the issued to the DCCs and TCCs and it may direct them to have alliances as per the political conditions in each municipality and corporation.