The Congress appears to be in a mood to wait for greater clarity on the issue of ‘one nation one election’ before it decides on announcing the list of party candidates for the Assembly polls in the state.
In case the Centre decides to go in for partial ‘one nation one election’ clubbing the elections in the five states that are due to go to polls ahead of the scheduled Lok Sabha elections, the AICC will have to take a fresh look into the list of candidates as it may have to field some of them for the Lok Sabha elections.
In view of this, despite the much hype given by the TPCC in the last few days that it would soon announce the list, the screening committee has not yet shortlisted the names.
However, party sources maintain that they will wait for the completion of the Congress Working Committee meeting slated to be held on September 16 in Hyderabad before submitting their recommendations to the party high command.
The Congress is also having second thoughts on the announcement of the list as it wants to minimise the backlash from aspirants who failed to get a ticket.
For the Telangana Congress, hosting the maiden meeting of the recently reconstituted CWC on 16 September and its extended meeting the next day in Hyderabad has come to be a momentous occasion.
The top brass — Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge, Priyanka, and others — will be sitting in Hyderabad scripting a strategy to win the elections to five state Assemblies, including Telangana, later this year and use the momentum created in the process to vanquish BJP and ride to power at the Centre in general elections next year.
Its resounding victory in Karnataka seems to have done the trick.
The BJP, which was very aggressive till the outcome of the Karnataka elections, began losing steam rapidly thereon.
With Telangana Chief Minister and BRS chief K Chandrashekar Rao toning down his attack on the BJP and the saffron party also taking the sting out of its campaign against the BRS by removing Bandi Sanjay Kumar as president of the Telangana BJP, an impression began gaining ground that there might be some kind of a covert understanding between them, roughly on the lines of “I scratch your back in the Assembly elections, and you scratch mine in the Lok Sabha polls”.
As the cobwebs seem to have cleared over the doubts of its resurgence, the Congress wants to go for the kill like never before.
The very fact that the BRS always trains its guns at the Congress and not the BJP is considered an indication that the KCR sees the Congress as its main political rival in Telangana.
KCR’s change of tack has seen in the Congress leaders the first stirrings of hope that they might after all be able to surprise KCR at the hustings.
