The Left parties are experiencing a bitter fallout with the Congress, exposing the cracks within the INDIA bloc ahead of the Telangana elections.
On Thursday, the CPM declared that they were going to contest on their own after Congress failed to provide clarity on the seat-sharing arrangement before the deadline set by them. For the past few weeks, at the invitation of Congress, the CPI and CPM have been trying to forge an alliance to take on the ruling BRS and BJP in 119 Assembly seats. The talks reached a deadlock, after which the CPM accused Congress of not fulfilling its commitment. "We proposed to contest 5 seats, but they said they could not part with two of those seats as they had sitting MLAs from there. We took a step down and were ready for 2-3 seats they would offer, but they were delaying the decision even on those seats. The seats that Congress initially proposed to give us, they later went back on it," said Tammineni Veerabhadram, state secretary of the CPM.
Veerabhadram added that the party took the decision after informing the central party members. "This is not something that we desired, but Congress’s attitude is responsible for this," he said.
The CPM announced the names of the 17 seats it would contest. The party was awaiting a decision from the CPI to work out a tie-up between them. The CPI will make its decision public on Friday regarding its status with the Congress.
According to sources in the CPI, the leadership is also disgruntled with the Congress. The party feels that Congress is being indifferent to their demands and intentionally delaying the process. They believe that Congress has suddenly become overambitious and wants to contest all seats by themselves. The CPI is also preparing to break up with the Congress and align with the CPM.
Interestingly, in the last few days, the Congress has welcomed back candidates who have the potential to contest in the seats that were discussed with the Left parties. Vivek Venkatswamy, who was with BJP, has shifted to the Congress and is most likely to be offered the Chennur seat, which the Left parties were interested in. Former legislator and BRS leader, Jalagam Venkat Rao, may join the Congress and be offered the Kothagudem seat, which should have again been offered to the CPI.
Munugode, which was demanded by the Left parties, is now reserved for former BJP leader Komatreddy Rajagopal Reddy, who has returned to the Congress.
