Congress, Telangana TDP likely to put up common candidate

​Hyderabad: Telangana Congress and T TDP are toying with the idea of putting up a common candidate or support an independent candidate in the Rajy Sabha elections to be held on June 11.

TDP sources said the two Opposition parties feel that this would help them exposing the TRS government’s “undemocratic rule” which has been poaching the legislators from the Opposition parties.

After the launch of “operation akarsh” by Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao , the Congress strength has been reduced to 14 from 19 in the Assembly after five of its MLAs joined the TRS.

In the TDP, only three members were left out of 15 who had won in the 2014 election. The defected 12 TDP MLAs have also been declared as TRS members after the merger of TDP MLAs with the ruling party.

The Congress and T TDP parties are searching for a candidate with good academic background or social activist or a retired official having a clean chit.

“The party leaders are of the view that though the two parties do not have required strength to win a seat, fielding a candidate will help explain to people the horse trading resorted to by TRS.

” The other option is to stay away from the election paving way to electing the candidates fielded by TRS unanimously. A decision whether to field a candidate would be taken in three or four days as the last date to file nominations is May 31.

As BJP is an arch rival to Congress at national level, sources said that the saffron party would not join hands in the alliance formed by two Opposition parties in the State.

The leaders of these parties say that since there is no scope to issue whip in the Rajya Sabha elections, those legislator, who migrated from one party to another, need not support one or other candidate fielded by the parties on which symbol they won. At the most these parties can suspend them and that is what the defectors want.