TDP on the defensive, takes potshots at Cong-TRS deal

With battle lines for the ensuing elections clearly drawn an increasingly jittery Telugu Desam (TDP) is now attacking the Congress and Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) alliance and hoping to reap dividends in the coastal Andhra belt.

In a move that could prove decisive, the Congress' decision to concede 42 assembly segments and six Lok Sabha seats to the TRS in the Telangana region has clearly left the ruling TDP worried.

The TDP is now attacking the grand alliance in the state between the Congress, TRS and the Communist parties hoping to counter the advantage that the combine may have in the Telangana region.

In a well thought out political offensive to corner the Congress for allying with a political outfit which wants a separate Telangana state, the TDP has asked the main opposition party to clarify its position on the Telangana issue.

"The people have a right to know on what grounds the Congress party has entered into an electoral alliance with the TRS," said state home minister T Devender Goud at a media conference, terming the alliance as an opportunistic move.

"How can the Congress party join hands with TRS which openly threatened the people of coastal region with serious bloodshed if the Pulichintala project was taken up on the Krishna river which was proposed mainly for the stabilisation of the existing ayacut in the Krishna Delta," Goud asked, in an apparent attempt to project the Congress decision as diametrically opposite to the interests of the coastal region .

Consciously avoiding any direct attack on the demand for a separate state, Devender Goud, who hails from Telangana, also pooh-poohed the TRS for joining hands with the Congress.

"How can TRS tie up with Congress when not long ago the TRS had termed the Congress as responsible for the backwardness of the Telangana region. Or, has the TRS put its separate Telangana demand in the cold storage for a few seats," he questioned.

Goud put up a brave front by saying that the chances of TDP to come back to power have further improved on account of the Congress-TRS alliance.

Congress has entered in to alliance with the TRS just because it was not sure of winning the elections on its own, he commented, while justifying his party's alliance with BJP which had in 1998 passed a resolution calling for bifurcating Andhra Pradesh into two states.

Defending their electoral alliances the opposition parties, including the TRS have claimed that ensuring the defeat of the 'anti-people TDP rule' was the common and topmost priority which had brought them together.

After achieving a breakthrough with the TRS, Congress leaders are now in the process of arriving at a similar arrangement with the CPI and the CPI(M).

According to Congress party sources, final talks on seat sharing between Congress and the left are slated on 2 February. So far the Congress has offered around a dozen assembly seats each to the two left parties while offering two Lok Sabha seats to the CPI(M) and one Lok Sabha seat to the CPI.

Meanwhile, the Telugu Desam and the BJP are expected to commence seat sharing talks after the Election Commission announces the election schedule.

The BJP is expected to draw its pound of flesh from the TDP this time round in return for its support.