Congress bypoll choice triggers protest

HYDERABAD: The Congress’s proposed list of candidates for the upcoming bypolls has triggered off unrest among party workers who are against the nomination of former TDP leader Samme Rao as the candidate for Warangal district’s Parkal constituency.
On Wednesday morning, hundreds of Congress workers and followers of Bhupalpalli MLA and chief whip Gandra Venkataramana Reddy staged a dharna in front of the chief minister’s camp office and the Gandhi Bhavan party headquarters to protest against the denial of a ticket to the chief whip’s wife Gandra Jyothi.
It is she who should be the Congress candidate for the Parkal seat, they maintained.
Raising slogans in favour of Jyothi’s candidature and against the high command’s selection, party workers first staged a dharna outside the CM’s office.
But after being forced away by cops, they shifted their protest to Gandhi Bhavan.
The protesters said that they would not allow Samme Rao to file his nomination, adding that they would not hesitate to work against him and ensure his defeat in the bypolls were the party to foist its choice upon them.
The news that the Congress leadership had zeroed in on a TDP leader as its candidate for the Parkal seat has irked the chief whip’s supporters.
Reddy had been trying to obtain a party ticket for his wife with the desired seat being Parkal, the only constituency going to the bypolls in Telangana.
But local ministers Ponnala Lakshmaiah, Basavaraju Saraiah and MP S Rajaiah are said to be against the Jyothi’s nomination for the said seat on the grounds that her husband is already an MLA and DCC president.
Botsa Satyanarayana, the PCC president, is reportedly in favour of a BC candidate from Parkal as the seat was earlier being represented by a leader from the community, Konda Surekha.
It was Surekha’s resignation which has necessitated bypolls in this Telangana constituency. Although chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy had backed Jyothi’s candidature, it was the TDP leader who was finally picked as the Congress nominee after a high-level meeting in Delhi on Tuesday presided by party president Sonia Gandhi.
Upset with the decision, Gandra and his wife met Kiran Kumar on Wednesday morning even as his followers carried on with their protest. The chief whip told TOI later that party workers in Warangal were shocked upon learning of the TDP leader’s candidature.
“Till Tuesday afternoon, he (Samme Rao) was in the TDP. How come a TDP leader, who is still to set his foot in Congress, is now one of the party’s candidates for the elections,” Gandra said.
He said that him and his wife had requested the chief minister to review the decision to field Samme Rao from Parkal and instead nominate Jyothi for the seat. Gandra had long back started campaigning for his wife in Parkal.
Meanwhile, CM-baiter and health minister DL Ravidra Reddy said that it is Kiran Kumar who should be held responsible for Congress’s success in the byelections.
“Since the chief minister has got his nominees selected for the seats in Kadapa district, it is his responsibility to see that these candidates win,” he said.