Telangana Assembly polls: YSR Congress may contest 25 to 30 seats

The YSR Congress is mulling contesting in 25 to 30 seats in the ensuing Telangana assembly elections, a senior party leader said Thursday.

He also said the party may not have any pre-poll alliance with other parties.

The Telangana unit of the party was preparing a "ground report" and it would be submitted to party chief YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, who is currently on marathon foot march in Andhra Pradesh covering over 3000 km.

"The party cadre are insisting that we should contest in the polls. Otherwise it sends wrong signals. We have considerable vote share in certain pockets of Telangana.

We are in the process of chalking out a strategy to be adopted in the polls. We have good number of voters in about 25 to 30 constituencies. We may contest in those seats," the YSRC leader told PTI.

The three MLAs and the lone Lok Sabha MP of the party in Telangana switched their loyalties to the ruling TRS leaving it with no representation in the State legislature and also in Lok Sabha.

Many leaders of YSRC joined other parties after Telangana was carved out of Andhra Pradesh in 2014.

Its top leadership also started focusing on Andhra Pradesh, where it is the main opposition party though many legislators defected to ruling Telugu Desam Party on various occasions.

The party functionary also claimed that YSRC still has good number of followers in Khammam, Hyderabad, Ranga Reddy and parts of old Nalgonda districts.
 

"The Congress both in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana still claims credit for some of the flagship schemes implemented by (Jagan's father and former Chief Minister) YS Rajasekher Reddy before the bifurcation of the State.

The people in Telangana still laud those schemes," he noted.

"We are waiting for our leader Jagan Mohan Reddy's instruction on the polls. Everything will be disclosed after Dussehra," Telangana YSR Congress President Gattu Srikanth Reddy said without elaborating.

The party had secured about 6.5 lakh votes in Assembly polls and 8.5 lakh votes during the Lok Sabha elections in 2014, the party sources said.

The Election Commission (EC) had on October 6 announced the election schedule for five states, including Telangana, which would go to the polls on December 7.

The Telangana Assembly was dissolved on September 6.