Will Congress Retain Main Opposition Status?

Will the Congress be able to retain the status of the main Opposition party in the Telangana Assembly? This question is plaguing the Telangana Congress leaders in the wake of the serial defections by the Party's legislators to the ruling TRS of late.

The Telangana Congress leaders are not only worried over the exodus, but are also seething with anger at the failure of the Central as well as State leaderships of the Party to take steps to ward off the defections and keep the flock together by infusing the needed confidence among the Party cadre and leaders.

The crisis in the Party deepened further with Chittem Rammohan Reddy, MLA from Makthal of the Mahbubnagar district, jumping onto the TRS bandwagon the other day. Since he is the brother of former Congress minister D K Aruna and hails from a politically strong and influential family in the district, his changing loyalty has come as a rude shock to the Party in Telangana.

The Congress, which had won 21 seats in the 119-member Telangana Assembly in the 2014 elections, is now left with only 14 members with the defection of the Makthal legislator (to retain its Opposition status it needs a minimum of 12 members - 10% of all MLAs). Earlier, D S Redya Naik (Dornakal), Yadaiah (Chevella), Vithal Reddy (Mudhole) and Kanakaiah (Yellandu) had defected from the Congress and embraced the pink Party. A number of Congress MLCs too have jumped ship, noted among them being former APCC president D Srinivas.

Though all the Congress turncoats claimed that they had joined the TRS for the sake of the overall development of their respective constituencies and be part of the ruling Party's endeavor to usher in a "Bangaru Telangana", there is no denial of the fact that they had been lured by Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao's meticulously planned and diligently implemented "Operation Akarshan". The bait for luring them into the TRS was undoubtedly some sort of political power, though till now only D Srinivas has been rewarded with any post (that of Advisor to the Government, which is a post with a Cabinet minister rank).

The recent defection of Rammohan Reddy also triggered off speculations that his sister D K Aruna too was waiting in the wings to join the TRS. However, the former minister stoutly denied the rumours and declared that she would rather beg on the streets than join the TRS. She also took the opportunity to lash out at KCR for encouraging a rift within her family.

At the same time, she also expressed disappointment that the TPCC president Uttam Kumar Reddy and Leader of Opposition in the Assembly K Jana Reddy were not taking the required measures to counter KCR's game plan to decimate the Congress in the State. Congress Rajya Sabha member and motor mouth V Hanumantha Rao did not spare even AICC general secretary in-charge of the State party affairs Digvijay Singh in this regard, and quipped that making trips from New Delhi to Hyderabad in the morning and leaving by the night would not solve the crisis. He stressed the imperative need to initiate brainstorming sessions of the Party leaders and cadre to infuse confidence among them.

This seemed to have provoked both Uttam Kumar Reddy and Jana Reddy to criticize KCR for encouraging defections and express the need for bringing in the required amendments in the Anti-Defection Act to check exodus from one Party to another.

As if to rub salt to injury, minister Jupally Krishna Rao, while interacting with the media, disclosed that a few more Congress MLAs would be joining the TRS soon, though he did not name them. This seemed to have sent jitters in the Telangana Congress, which is now worried that the Party might even lose its Main Opposition status in the Assembly if more members fell prey to KCR's baits. That needs just three more of its MLAs defecting, which now appears to be within breathing distance.