Congress' "Friendly Contest" Concept Irks Partners

The major party in the grand alliance, the Congress, on Monday created new tension for its alliance partners the TDP and the TJS by issuing B-forms to its leaders in constituencies allotted to those parties.

This has caused a major flutter among the TDP and TJS party leaders.

The Congress had allotted the Warangal East, Dubbaka and Miryalaguda Assembly constituencies to the TJS, and the Patancheru, Huzurabad and Ibrahimpatnam constituencies to the TDP. However, the party issued B-forms to certain leaders of its party in those constituencies and asked them to contest for those seats.

Among the TJS' constituencies, the Congress has given B-forms to Maddula Nageswar Reddy for Dubbaka, V Ravichandra for Warangal East and R Krishnaiah for Miryalaguda; and among the constituencies allotted to the TDP, it has given B-forms to Malreddy Ranga Reddy for Ibrahimpatnam and Kata Srinivas Goud for Patancheru.

Commenting on the issue, senior Congress leaders said that they had issued the B-forms to their party candidates as they wanted to have "friendly" contests with the alliance partners. However, the leaders of the alliance partners are saying that this was nothing but betrayal by the Congress.

"How can the Congress issue B-forms for the constituencies allotted to us? We will not tolerate this. We will take it up with the Congress high command and urge it to ensure that all its leaders withdraw from our constituencies," a TJS leader said.