Row over announcement of Congress candidates

 Hyderabad: Announcement of candidates to several Assembly constituencies by Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC)President N Uttam Kumar Reddy during the Praja Chaitanya Bus Yatra is leading to a controversy in the party. 

Leaders of the constituencies are opposing the announcement of candidature to their rivals in the constituency. Senior leaders of the party have been arguing that the PCC did not have power to announce the candidates to the constituencies and PCC President must desist from the practice. 

The TPCC chief N Uttam Kumar Reddy who has been touring the State through the Bus Yatra of the party has announced candidates for the Assembly constituencies in the past three months. He had announced the names of the party candidates to as many as 12 constituencies. 

The TPCC president said that J Raghava Reddy would contest from Palakurthi, Sridhar Babu from Manthani, D Madhav Reddy from Narsampet, Ramesh from Tandur, Rajendra Reddy from Warangal West, Sunitha Laxma Reddy from Narsapur, Jagga Reddy from Sanga Reddy, Geetha Reddy from Zaheerabad and few other names.  Some of these announcements have led to controversy in the party. 
Party leader D Srinivasa Rao opposed announcement of Raghava Reddy’s candidature and similar situation has taken place in few other constituencies.Sources in the party said that the announcement of candidates has irked the CLP leader K Jana Reddy and led to his leaving a meeting abruptly and kept some important leaders from attending the Bus Yatra programme. 

On the other hand senior leaders of the party are also opposing announcement of candidates for the ACs. Leaders like K Jana Reddy, DK Aruna, Marri Shashidhar Reddy have opposed the announcements though did not make open comments. 

These senior leaders pointed out that the power to announce the candidates for the Assembly segments is vested with the All India Congress Committee and PCC is not authorised for that. They said that the TPCC president should follow the rule scrupulously.  It may be mentioned here that a list of probable candidates which made rounds in the social media has also led to controversy in last year. 

The rumor mongers said in that post the All India Congress Committee (AICC) has conducted a survey on the candidates and found as many as 60 leaders who could win. The TPCC was forced to step in and to deny the existence of any such list to control the damage. The TPCC president Uttam Kumar Reddy appealed the party leaders and workers not to believe the list.