No breakthrough yet for Congress in poll parleys with TDP, TJS

​Hyderabad: The Congress has kept the ball rolling as far as the talks on formation of alliance is concerned with PCC president Uttam Kumar Reddy meeting Telugu Desam and Telangana Jana Samithi leaders separately in the last two days.

According to party sources, the PCC chief is continuing informal talks to strike a deal with TD and TJS. The Congress has officially held talks with TD in the last week and continued the effort in this week also.  Party leaders said that the talks have not yet crossed the preliminary stage and they were yet to put focus on sharing of seats. 

The Congress, TD and TJS are trying to come to an understanding on the common minimum programme. Uttam Kumar Reddy and Telangana TD president L Ramana have met over lunch on Tuesday and discussed the issues related to the alliance. They had the meeting at an undisclosed place. 

The PCC president also met TJS leaders Dilip and Inna Reddy two days ago at his residence and discussions were held on the proposals of TJS on common minimum programme. Leaders of TD and Congress said that the informal talks between their leaders would continue and alliance would be announced officially once an understanding was arrived at on seat adjustments. 

According to sources, the discussion on alliance has not made a progress in the past one week due to the proposals of TD and TJS on the number of seats and items of common minimum programme. While the deadlock is continuing with TD on number of seats, Congress is unable to come to terms with the CMP being proposed by TJS. 

The TD and TJS have been seeking about 30 and 20 seats each for them respectively. The CPI too is seeking about 15 seats for it. This leaves the Congress with much less seats than it has been contemplating to contest. The Congress has been strongly indicating that it would contest 90 seats and was ready to concede rest of the seats to alliance partners. Congress sources said that the TJS wants that alliance should have a common minimum programme being proposed by it and its president Kodandaram should be made chairman of the CMP implementation committee. 

However, the Congress and TD have their own reservations over the CMP proposed by TJS and they have been discussing over accepting or refusing the proposals of Jana Samithi. Meanwhile, the All India Congress Committee has agreed for alliance in the State and has authorised the PCC to hold discussions with TD, TJS and CPI. Congress sources said that PCC president Uttam would represent the Congress in the talks officially.