Congress likely to shift its MLAs to Karnataka after victory

Confident of a resounding victory with all the exit polls in its favour in the State, the Telangana Congress has initiated precautionary measures to ensure that its MLAs do not slip out of its hands.

While there will be no problems if the party crosses the magic figure of 60 in the results, it is likely to face defections in the event of an hung assembly. It is already being said that some Congress candidates are in touch with CM K Chandrashekar Rao. And to avoid defections and horse-trading, the party has roped in Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, who is known for running camp politics, to keep the flock intact.

Five Karnataka ministers, in addition to DK, are also expected to arrive in Hyderabad on Saturday evening, a day before the counting of votes.

It is learnt that DK & co have already asked the party's candidates to come to the Taj Krishna in Hyderabad. DK will have a special meeting with the candidates there. After the results are announced, the winning MLAs will be whisked off to Bengaluru by the DK batch in special flights.

As part of the same exercise, Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) chief Revanth Reddy and party MP Uttam Kumar Reddy also met with Telangana Chief Electoral Officer Vikas Raj on Saturday morning and made a special request regarding the Congress candidates who win. They urged the CEO to hand over the election certificates of their party candidates to the chief election agents of the party after the declaration of their wins. They said that the contested candidates would not be available locally to receive the election certificates.

After the exit polls were announced, DK, speaking to a national TV channel, made sensational remarks against KCR. He alleged that KCR had already gotten in touch with some of the Congress candidates. He asserted that it would not be easy for KCR to snatch away the Congress MLAs.

It is known that after the formation of the BRS government in the 2018 elections, 16 Congress MLAs had broken off and called themselves the Congress Legislature Party, and had joined the BRS government at the behest of KCR.