Seat-Sharing: CPI Gives 48 Hours To Congress

One of the Telangana grand alliance partners, the CPI, on Monday set a 48-hour deadline to another alliance partner the Congress for the finalisation of the seat-sharing, and threatened that it would pull out of the alliance and contest the elections on its own if the latter did not finalize the seats to be allotted to the alliance partners within the deadline.

The Left party also made public the list of Assembly constituencies that it has demanded from the Congress.

The Telangana secretary of the party Chada Venkat Reddy said that the party was forced to declare the list of the seats sought by it as there had been an inordinate delay in the finalization of the seat-sharing among the grand alliance partners.

He, however, said that the CPI would not declare its candidates for the next two days in order to contest the elections as part of the grand alliance.

"We are not happy with the attitude of the Congress and its leaders, and had no option but to declare the seats that we have demanded from the Congress. But we are not announcing the names of our party candidates for the next two days in order to allow the Congress to finalize the seat-sharing. If it fails to do so, we will declare our candidates," he said.

Reddy said that there was an overwhelming response from the people of the state to the grand alliance formed by the opposition parties, but that all the delay in the finalization of the Assembly seats was sending out a wrong signal to the people.

"It is quite disappointing that the discussions over the seat-sharing issue have not yet reached fruition despite the fact that they were even held at the national level. We had actually prepared two plans - Plan A and Plan B - and had put Plan B before the Congress. The discussions on our Plan B were held for almost 15 days. However no outcome came out of these discussions so far," he said.

Reddy went on to add that the CPI would declare its candidates for the nine Assembly segments where it was strong in the state if the Congress did not respond to its ultimatum.

"We can't wait any more for the sake of the people of the state. We are even ready to bring down the number of seats we are demanding to ensure the victory of the grand alliance in the state. There is an urgent need to complete the seat-sharing process as soon as possible to jump into the election campaign," he said.

The seats that the CPI said that it was planning to contest for in the upcoming elections on its own are Kothagudem, Wyra, Husnabad, Bellampally, Alair, Munugodu, Pinapaka, Manchiryala and Devarakonda.