The Congress party does not want to lose any opportunity that would help it pull down the Telangana Rashtra Samithi from power in 2019 assembly elections, even it required forging an alliance with the Telangana unit of Telugu Desam Party.
Though the Telangana TDP has lost most of its leaders who jumped into the TRS, the party still has a lot of cadre at the field level, which has been opposing the ruling party. Moreover, it still has a hold among the Seemandhra settlers in Telangana, particularly the Kamma community.
These settlers had voted for the TDP in 2014 assembly elections, but shifted to the TRS during the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation polls, because of the good relations between Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and his AP counterpart N Chandrababu Naidu. But now, the relations seem to have strained and the TDP is now trying to exploit the same to counter the TRS.
The Congress party is now trying to cash in on these differences between the TRS and the TDP.
The Congress leaders are sending feelers to the TDP for an alliance and might even offer a few seats to the latter, so as to defeat the TRS. That is why even PCC president Capt N Uttam Kumar Reddy is not ruling out the alliance with the TDP.
On record, however, Uttam says it is too premature to talk about the alliances.
“The decision on this issue would be taken by Congress president Rahul Gandhi himself,” he said.
The Congress is planning to support the Seemandhra settlers, if they contested the next elections either on Congress or on the TDP tickets.
“In 2014, the Seemandhra settlers in Hyderabad were angry with Congress party after the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh in 2014. But now, the things have changed. We are hopeful of winning back their confidence,” he said.
If the Congress cannot win in the constituencies dominated by settlers, it will back the TDP candidates, the party sources said.
