Cong party credibility at stake in T region

Stung by the negative verdict in the recent byelections,all the defeated Congress candidates including PCC president D Srinivas decided to urge the party leadership to take steps to restore the credibility of the party in the Telangana region. In a post-poll review meeting,attended by 10 defeated candidates, home minister Sabita Indra Reddy,information minister J Geeta Reddy,party MLA Gandra Venktramana Reddy, APCC general secretaries Ananda Bhaskar,D Niranjan,P Narasimha Reddy,former MLC B Kamalakar Rao and others,it was decided to convey to party president Sonia Gandhi on the credibility crisis that the party is facing in the region.Defeated candidates A Lakshman Kumar (Dharmapuri) and V Krishnamohan (Huzurabad) did not attend the meeting.

A resolution was adopted in the meeting which said Telangana entered a new phase after Union home minister P Chidambaram made a pro-Telangana statement on December 9,2009.The statement was welcomed by one and all.But the subsequent change of line by the leadership hit the image of the party badly.Now,people are not ready to believe in Congress.The electorate demonstrated this by favouring TRS in the byelections, the resolution said. The meeting,chaired by PCC president D Srinivas,on whom Telangana party leaders are mounting pressure to quit,candidly admitted that the people were not believing the partys claim that it alone can bring about Telangana.While the Congress backtracked from the Dec 9 statement,the TRS ran a campaign for T state all these six months.The partys credibility is at stake now, the defeated candidates are said to have opined.

Admitting that the party failed to gauge the depth and width of the sentiment,party candidate from Sirpur A Indrakaran Reddy said internal squabbling also contributed to the defeat.Speaking in defence of D Srinivas,APCC general secretary P Narasimha Reddy said there was no need for Srinivas to step down as PCC president as the bypolls were held under special circumstances.The defeated candidate will seek an appointment with Sonia Gandhi soon.We will personally meet her and convey the mood and judgment of the people, a candidate told TOI.
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T debacle: Naidu under pressure to split TDP


Leaders from the Telangana and Andhra regions in the TDP are mounting pressure on party president N Chandrababu Naidu to split the party into TDP-T and TDP-A so that the party can remain a strong political entity in both the regions. The call for coming clear on the T issue and splitting the party into two was made by leaders from both the regions a day after it received a drubbing in the bypolls.The TDP nominees lost their deposits in all the 12 seats and the total votes that its 12 nominees received was just a little over a lakh. The action plan that has been suggested to Naidu is to split the party into two units which will be headed by a working president or vice president.Naidu will remain the chairman or president of both the parties.The Telangana TDP will immediately come out in support of the separate state cause while the TDP-A will root for a united Andhra, said a leader.

TDP sources said the Telangana party leaders said the lack of a clear stance on Telangana made them out as suspects in the eyes of the people.Naidu promised Telangana and put it on hold after the December 9 announcement by the Centre last year.If the party has to survive in the region,we have to espouse the separate state cause.Otherwise,we will be wiped out, said a party leader from Telangana.
The leaders were unanimous that they cannot go to the people by remaining ambiguous on the T issue.Since the results were out,Telangana supporters have attempted to attack the residences of TDP leaders E Dayakar Rao and Kadiam Srihari in the region.According to the sources,Dayakar Rao was among the leaders who advocated the splitting of the party into two units while a similar appeal was made by leaders from the Andhra region including K Yerrannaidu.

Another worrying aspect for the Telangana TDP leaders is the call given by P Eshan Reddy,a students who allegedly committed suicide in Osmania University campus on Saturday.In his suicide note,Eshan had described 9 Congress and TDP leaders including Nagam Janardhan Reddy, Devender Goud, Dayakar Rao and Srihari,as Telangana cheats and urged the people of the region to boycott them.
When asked about it,Devender Goud told TOI that he has not been able to fathom the listing of names including his by the boy.In fact,all the leaders named by him have been strong supporters of Telangana,while those who are not supporting the cause in both the TDP and Congress have been left out by him, the TDP leader told TOI.

Goud,who had left TDP,floated his own party,then merged it with PRP and finally returned to the TDP,claimed that all is not lost for the TDP in T.It is a setback for the party from which we will recover.There was a massive support for the TRS because of the resignations and sympathy.There are special circumstances and in fact,cadres of some parties including ours worked for the victory of the TRS candidates in view of the strong sentiment, Goud said and ruled out leaving the TDP in view of the bypoll debacle.
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(source-toi)