Congress says rebel factor will hurt TRS

Hyderabad: The Congress leaders are hoping that presence of hundreds of rebels of the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) may help the party to make some gains in the municipal elections.

As the campaign to the elections would come to an end by January 21, the TRS is struggling with the problem of rebels. According to sources, about 1,200 leaders have filed their nominations as rebels against the TRS official candidates.

For the 3,052 wards in the State about 12,898 candidates have filed nominations. On behalf of the TRS about 2,900 candidates, 2,616 from Congress and 2,313 from BJP have filed nomination papers.

Out of the total of 12,898 candidates, 1,248 have filed papers on behalf of CPI, CPM, MIM, TDP, YSRCP and other recognised parties. The number of candidates, who filed on behalf of TRS, Congress and BJP is about 7,800. Besides, 3,850 independents are in poll fray.

According to sources, 1,200 candidates would be rebels of TRS out of the total of 3,850 independents. Congress leaders said that even though the TRS persuaded the rebels to withdraw their nominations, they remained in the contest.

A senior leader of Congress said that in most of the wards the number of rebels against the official TRS candidates was about four on the average. In some wards, the TRS senior leaders have encouraged the rebels.

On the other hand, the rebel trouble to TRS was quite high in the Assembly constituencies which are represented by the defected Congress MLAs.

In constituencies like Kollapur, Tandur, Yellandu, Nakrekal and others, the defected MLAs have fielded their followers against the TRS official candidates. The Congress leaders, who have analysed the situation have said that at several places presence of rebels may help the Grand Old Party.

They said that the official and rebels are likely to divide the votes between them and it would benefit the official Congress candidates.

The Congress has been winning about 25 per cent of the seats in the local body elections like MPTC, ZPTC and Gram Panchayats. This percentage may go up in the ULBs with the presence of rebels of TRS in the polls.

Senior Congress leaders like Revanth Reddy, Uttam Kumar Reddy, K Venkat Reddy, Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka and others have been trying to cash in the problem in the TRS camp.

They have been vigorously campaigning in their respective municipalities and corporations and trying to ensure maximum number of votes to Congress candidates.

They are of the view that if the votes are divided between Congress, TRS official candidates and rebels evenly, the candidates of the main opposition would secure a majority.