"The people wanted a change and voted for the Congress. How can one justify the imposition of leaders from BRS as Congress nominees?" a senior Congress leader said.
CM Revanth Reddy with Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge (X)
Rumblings of discontent over the allotment of tickets are getting louder in the Congress despite the party having not announced its candidates for all 17 Lok Sabha seats.
If a section of leaders are unhappy over the party fielding candidates who have parachuted in from other political formations, some communities feel they have been neglected.
Though the Congress is exuberant over prominent BRS leaders joining the party ahead of the 13 May Parliament election, its workers and constituency-level leaders are a disappointed lot. Many of them felt the party had ignored their work and the wait for more than a decade, and were forced to play second fiddle to those the Congress had been so far opposing.
The undercurrents of disapproval over the candidature of ‘migrants’ were not prominently felt. Still, dissent has been brewing beneath the surface after the Congress named G Ranjit Reddy (Chevella constituency), Danam Nagender (Secunderabad) and P Sunita Mahender Reddy (Malkajgiri) as candidates, ‘sidelining’ the party loyalists.
The trio left the BRS after it lost power in the state in the 30 November 2023 Assembly polls, and joined the Congress, apparently sensing the grand old party’s better prospects at the hustings.
The importance given to these leaders even prompted senior leader G Niranjan to write to party president Mallikarjun Kharge, disapproving of the practice of going overboard in welcoming leaders from other parties and allotting tickets to them.
Speaking to South First, Niranjan said that allotment of tickets to migrants from other parties amounted to the negation of the mandate given to the Congress in the recent Assembly elections.
“The people wanted a change and voted for the Congress. How can one justify the imposition of leaders from BRS as Congress nominees now? They were leaders of the party which was rejected by the people,” he said.
The Congress senior vice-president said his letter to Kharge did not amount to indiscipline as the Congress allowed the freedom to express opinions.
In the letter to the Congress president, he said the practice of entertaining “imported” leaders would demoralise the workers and requested the high command to reconsider fielding them in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The party should field those who remain loyal to the party regardless of whether they are financially well-off or not.
PM Modi with MRPS chief Manda Krishna Madiga. (X)
Meanwhile, the leaders of the Madiga subcaste within the Scheduled Caste community, too, are unhappy over the party high command giving importance to the family members of Mallu Anantaramulu and G Venaktaswamy while allotting tickets for Peddapally and Nagarkurnool seats.
Manda Krishna Madiga, who has been spearheading an agitation for the sub-categorisation of SCs seeking reservation within the reservation in educational institutions and employment, recently spoke about the injustice meted out to the community by the Congress and the BRS. He appealed to his community members to support the BJP, which he claimed, was committed to the cause of the Madigas.
Though he was speaking on behalf of the BJP, the deep resentment among the Madigas is hard to miss. They are numerically stronger in Telangana than Malas.
Of the three seats reserved for the SCs, the Congress nominated two Mala leaders for Paddapally and Nagarkurnool. The party is fielding G Vamsi Krishna from Paddapally and Mallu Ravi from Nagarkurnool in Mahabubnagar.
Vamsi Krisha is the son of Congress legislator G Vivek Venkataswamy and Mallu Ravi is a senior vice president of the TPCC and the brother of Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka
A Madiga leader, SA Sampath Kumar, was crestfallen when the ticket went to Ravi. Before the ticket was finalised, Kumar had written to Sonia Gandhi requesting her to field him from Nagarkurnool.
“I was expecting the ticket. Anybody can aspire for anything but once the party takes a decision we have to abide by it. Though I had tried hard for the ticket, I welcome the party’s decision to field Mallu Ravi instead of me,” he told South First.
Kumar, however, said that as a Madiga leader, he was pained to see the injustice being meted out to the sub-caste by not only the Congress but also by other parties. “We are more in number in the state and yet the tickets for the two of three Lok Sabha seats went to Malas,” he said, implying that one of the two seats should have gone to Madigas.
He, however, felicitated Ravi when the latter visited him at his home and sought his support. If he was unhappy over the party high command preferring Ravi to him, he did not show it, and on the other hand, pledged his support.
When asked if he had received any assurance for foregoing the ticket to contest from Nagrkurnool, he was evasive. “The chief minister would take care of me. I am not worried,” he said.
The Congress has not yet found a suitable Madiga candidate for the Warangal SC seat. According to sources, the party was considering a few names, but could not finalise one. Indications are that sitting BRS MP Pasunuri Dayakar, who joined the Congress recently, may not be fielded from Warangal since he is a Mala and the party cannot afford to further antagonise the powerful Madigas.
Dayakar left the BRS after the party leadership nominated MLA Kadiayam Srihari’s daughter Kavya as its candidate in Warangal.
(Edited by Majnu Babu)
Apr 29, 2024
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