It looks like Telangana Jana Samithi president Prof M Kodandaram has succumbed to the pressures of the Congress party and agreed to scale down from his demand for more seats as part of grand alliance.
Kodandaram, who is learnt to have initially demanded for at least 20 seats, brought it down to 15 and then to 12. Now, he is ready for a compromise and contest in half a dozen seats.
The Telugu Desam Party might also end up with 12-15 seats in the alliance. The CPI might be offered three seats.
The Congress party has pointed out that the effective number of seats where all the parties can contest in the 119-member assembly are only 112, as the remaining seven seats would any way be won by the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen.
Even if these seven seats are shared, the chances of victory in these constituencies are virtually bleak.
So, out of 112, the Congress can at the most give 22 seats to the allies, as it wants to contest in not less than 90 seats. So, the seat adjustments would be done based on this formula.
That is precisely why the TJS chief said his party was ready for a compromise on the number of seats if it meant following the ideals and spirit of the Telangana movement.
“We are ready to contest in a fewer seats than what we originally wanted to contest in. We hope the Maha Kootami of the Congress, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and Communist Party of India (CPI) would agree on putting people ahead of personal goals and gains in the coming elections,” he said.
“We want the alliance to go ahead with a common minimum programme that seeks to fulfill the aspirations of, and struggle by the people that made Telangana State possible,” he said.