Seat-Sharing Talks Among Mahakutami Partners Inconclusive

The seat distribution among the Mahakutami parties (Congress, TDP, TJS, CPI) has not yet been finalized. The discussions are continuing, and may continue for a few more days.

According to sources, the stalemate between the Congress and the Telangana Jana Samithi (TJS) is still on. TPCC chief N Uttam Kumar Reddy, and AICC secretary and Telangana Congress affairs in-charge R C Kuntia from the Congress, and M Kodandaram and Kailavai Dileep Kumar from the TJS participated in discussions at a private hotel today too. The discussions were however not fruitful today, either.

The Congress leaders left the hotel without saying a word to the waiting mediapersons. Kodandaram, who emerged a bit later, said that prolonged negotiations were common in politics and that it would take time to divide the seats given there were more than two political parties in the alliance. "Everything will settle down within two or three days, and we will inform the media immediately once the talks on seat sharing are complete," he said.

Kodandaram also implied that he was not going to participate in AICC chief Rahul Gandhi's public meetings. When asked whether he would participate if the Congress invited him to Gandhi's public meetings in Bhainsa and Kamareddy on Saturday, he said, "I will not answer speculative questions."

Replying to another question, Kodandaram said that TJS candidates would participate in the elections on their own party's symbol. He said that the registration process was over and that within a few days the TJS would get a symbol, too.

According to sources, the Congress tried seriously to close the seat sharing talks today itself to convey something to Rahul Gandhi to enable him to speak on the alliance in the public meetings lined up for Saturday, but failed. It is learnt that the TJS has stuck to its demand of 16 Assembly seats, and the Congress, which started off by offering 2-3 seats to the TJS, is willing to up its offer to nine seats.

Reacting to the TRS' partial manifesto, Kodandaram said that he would not say anything about it as there was nothing great in it.