Congress bids to capture SCCL in Dec. 27 elections

 Hyderabada: After capturing power in the recent Assembly elections, the Congress has now set eyes on capturing Singareni Collieries Company Ltd (SCCL) from the BRS in the trade union elections scheduled for December 27.

Towards this, industries minister D. Sridhar Babu held a meeting with party leaders from the Singareni coal belt area in the Legislative Assembly premises here on Friday and discussed the party's strategy for the elections.

Congress MLAs from Ramagundam and Dharmapuri, Makkan Singh Raj Thakur and Adluri Laxman Kumar, respectively, Intuc secretary general, SCCL, Janak Prasad and MLC T. Jeevan Reddy were present at the meeting.

The Congress leadership is keen on ensuring that the Indian National Trade Union Congress (Intuc), its affiliated trade union, defeats the BRS-affiliated Telangana Boggu Gani Karmika Sangham (TBGKS).

The political equations in SCCL have changed drastically after the Congress stormed to power in Telangana state. Moreover, the Congress made a near clean sweep while winning all but one Assembly seat in the coal belt.

In the previous elections held in October 2017, the TBGKS won nine out of 11 divisions.

The Congress and the BRS have taken the ensuing SCCL elections as a prestige issue as this will mark the first litmus test for both after the Assembly elections. The Singareni elections will be decided by 45,000 registered voters.