Congress Cadre Stands Missing as Leaders Lobby for Tickets in Hyderabad, Delhi

Hyderabad: Congress activists are tensely awaiting the party's candidate list, even as the BRS and BJP are in the thick of things with back-to-back public meetings by their top leaders and the Election Commission on the verge of issuing the poll dates.

With less than two months left for the Assembly polls, the last major Congress public meeting was at Tukkuguda on September 17. Since then, leaders and ticket aspirants have been busy in Hyderabad and Delhi, lobbying for tickets.

The high command's directions to leaders to take the party's 'six guarantees' to the people lay in deep freeze.

Dissidence, meanwhile, is brewing with the leadership inviting politicians from other parties with a promise of tickets, over Congress old-timers.

Besides, there is a strong demand for tickets on caste lines. BC community leaders want 34 seats out of the 88 general seats, leaving just 54 seats to those from other castes. Out of the 119 seats, 19 are reserved for SCs and 12 for STs.

Party leaders and workers are thronging Gandhi Bhavan to lobby for tickets, though TPCC chief A. Revanth Reddy and top leaders have made it clear that matters are now in the hands of the high command.

The reports of a few top leaders securing assurances from high command over the allotment of two tickets to their family — against the Udaipur Declaration directive of one seat per family — are causing further anxiety.

The buzz in Gandhi Bhavan circles is that top leaders K. Jana Reddy, N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, T.Jagga Reddy, and Damodar Rajanarasimha have secured an assurance of two tickets to their families as also the new entrant BRS MLA Mynampally Hanumanth Rao.