Even as the Telangana Congress party more or less completed the exercise of the selection of the candidates to contest the upcoming assembly elections, disgruntlement has started brewing in several places in the ticket aspirants.
On Monday, the AICC screening committee for Telangana comprising Kerala MP K Muralidharan, former Maharashtra MLA Baba Siddique and Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani began the screening of the applications to finalise the list.
They will make a thorough assessment of the ground situation and strengths and weaknesses of the ticket aspirants, before recommending to the high command for a final nod of the list.
However, even as the exercise for finalizing candidates is underway in the Telangana Congress, dissidence among its leaders continues to come to the fore with many opposing the selection of a few candidates in different constituencies.
Some of the party leaders have gone to the extent of threatening the party leadership saying that if their appeals were not considered, the party would lose deposits in their constituencies.
On Monday, posters surfaced at many locations in LB Nagar opposing TPCC Campaign Committee Chairman Madhu Yaskhi Goud’s entry into the constituency. The former MP had filed an application seeking a ticket to contest from LB Nagar constituency.
Party senior leader Malreddy Ranga Reddy had also filed an application from LB Nagar constituency.
Posters reading “Save LB Nagar Congress,” “Please say no ticket to parachutes,” “Go back to Nizamabad” came up in different areas of LB Nagar.
Similarly, leaders were objecting a ticket to AICC secretary and disciplinary committee chairman G Chinna Reddy.
A section of leaders reportedly raised “Chinna Reddy hatao, Congress ko Bachao” slogans. They had also distributed letters to Pradesh Election Committee members and senior leaders in the party appealing them not to offer ticket to Chinna Reddy.
They further warned that if the State leadership did not consider their appeal, the Congress would lose deposit in Wanaparthy constituency.
Youth Congress State president Shivasena Reddy had openly expressed his differences with Chinna Reddy during the party meeting last month at Wanaparthy.
Same is the case with Jubilee Hills Constituency. Even as former CLP leader P Janardhan Reddy’s son Vishnu Vardhan Reddy filed application and is expecting ticket to contest from Jubilee Hills constituency, former Indian cricket captain Mohd. Azharuddin declared that he would be contesting from the constituency.
On Sunday, the former cricketer held a meeting with a section of leaders, who are against Vishnu Vardhan Reddy. Irked over these developments, Vishnu Vardhan Reddy lodged a complaint against the former cricketer with AICC in-charge of Telangana Manikrao Thakare.