With Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao having announced the BRS candidates for all but four of the 119 Assembly segments in the state, the Congress party has hastened the process of finalising its nominees for the elections slated for year-end.
As part of this exercise, the Pradesh Election Committee of the state unit of the party, which met at Gandhi Bhavan in Hyderabad on Tuesday, 29 August, went through the applications received between 18 and 25 August.
The meeting was not without some drama, with differences cropping up between state unit president Revanth Reddy and Nalgonda MP Uttam Kumar Reddy.
According to sources, the differences were over a proposal that not more than one person in a family should be given a ticket, and Uttam Kumar Reddy left the meeting in a huff.
1,009 applications for 119 seats
The Congress, implementing the Karnataka model in approaching the elections, received 1,009 applications for the 119 seats which on average is about eight applications per seat.
General candidates had to pay ₹50,000 as application fee, while the fee for Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), and Backward Classes (BCs) was ₹25,000.
The maximum number of applications — a whopping 38 — was received for the Illendu constituency, while the Kodangal and Jagtial segments had only one application each.
The Pradesh Election Committee (PEC), which has 29 members, went through the applications received by the party at the meeting presided over by Revanth Reddy.
According to Mahesh Kumar Goud, PCC vice president, the first list would comprise mainly SCs, STs, and BCs.
After the meeting, Bhongir MP Komatireddy Venkata Reddy told media-persons that there would be no shortlisting of candidates to three for each segment as had been thought earlier.
