Telangana Congress leaders have successfully stalled Chiranjeevi’s proposed election campaign in the region for the ensuing by-polls.
Following the veiled threats that they would not allow Chiranjeevi to campaign for the party candidates in Telangana, the PCC changed the schedule to confine the actor-turned-politician’s tour to Kovur by-poll alone.
Congress MLA from Nalgonda Damodar Reddy told reporters in a free-wheeling chat on Monday that they would strongly oppose Chiranjeevi road shows in Telangana in support of the party candidates, since his Praja Rajyam earlier ‘opposed separate Telangana’.
The warning, echoed by several other Congress MPs and MLAs from the region, had its intended effect by evening when Gandhi Bhavan chalked out a new campaign schedule in which Chiranjeevi’s role was limited to Kovur in Nellore district.
A whole lot of Congress leaders from Telangana, peeved with CM Kiran as well as PCC chief Botsa Satyanarayana, are keeping away from the by-election campaign. MPs including G Vivekananda, Manda Jagannadham, Sukhender Reddy, Ponnam Prabhakar and Madhu Yashki have not only showed an absolute disinclination towards Congress candidates, but also declared that the party would bite the dust in these by-polls.
It is in this backdrop that these leaders are expressing strong opposition to any possibility of Chiru influencing the electorate in the region. Most of them are comfortable with the idea that Congress should lose the polls and TRS should win hands down.
This is their way of teaching a lesson to the Congress high command in Delhi, which they feel has been humiliating them by giving undue importance to Kiran and Botsa,’leaders from Andhra’. It is also an open secret that many of these MPs and MLAs are hoping to get elected on TRS ticket in 2014 general elections.
The above scenario probably provides us a clue about the certainty of the fate of the Congress Party in the polls for six seats in Telangana.
