Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy received a jolt with the cross-voting in the Legislative Council elections, with as many as 25 Congress legislators owing allegiance to Y S Jaganmohan Reddy voting at will, disregarding the Whip issued by the party.
Though Jaganmohan Reddy had parted ways with the Congress and
formed his own political outfit, these 25 legislators have been sailing with the YSR Congress Party while retaining the Congress tag.
The Council elections seem to suggest that the Chief Minister has no control over these 25 legislators, and that more legislators are expected to follow them.
The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) was the worst-affected during the Legislative Council elections. Its MLA ranks were in a disarray, and the TRS nominee Mahmood Ali polled just 11 votes, thereby tasting defeat.
Rumours were afloat that the TRS and Jaganmohan Reddy had reached an understanding. But MIM candidate Altaf Hyder Rizvi was seen to be the favourite of the Jagan group, remaining at the top by securing 36 preferential votes with the help of the group, which rubbished the view that the rebel leader had set aside any support for the TRS or its chief.
The 25 legislators had met Jaganmohan Reddy in a conclave prior to the polling, allegedly with the aim of embarrassing the N Kiran Kumar Reddy government, which had earlier embarrassed Jaganmohan Reddy on the Floor of the House.
With the government set to make an attempt to announce its policy to address the problem of
land allocations made during the YSR regime on Monday, the Jagan factor may prove dangerous at this point in time.
In any case, the Congress is celebrating the victory of 5 of its candidates in the Legislative Council elections.
On the other hand, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) President N Chandrababu Naidu also faced embarrassment, with the defeat of their member Pratibha Bharathi.
The TDP made frantic efforts to have another round of counting, as a last-minute trial for their candidate, but the Election Commission overruled the party's demands for a recount of the 2nd preference votes.
On the other hand, Congress strategists maintain that they had successfully countered the threat posed by the MLAs supporting Jagan by allotting their votes to the minority candidates of the Congress.
Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy said that they had "designed the vote pattern in such a way that had they (the MLAs) voted against Congress, they would have been dubbed as anti-minority."
This may have paid off for the Congress, with former speaker Pratibha Bharati getting trounced in the final outcome, and the dark horse - Mohammed Jani of the Congress, a former Deputy Chairman of the Council - bagging 17 of the allocated 27 votes from the Assembly segment, thereby winning the battle in the final round.
"Our fore-sighted allocation of 3rd preference votes to Jani paid off dividends, though 9-10 MLAs allocated to him cross voted in the 1st round," said the Chief Minister.
However, the defiance shown by the 25 legislators of the Congress seems to be a sign that danger is lurking round the corner for the party.
Overall, 12 candidates were in the fray for the 10 seats to the Council from the Assembly quota.
Courtesy: INN