The announcement made by Telangana Rashtra Samithi president and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao that he would announce the list of candidates contesting for the next assembly elections in September created commotion in the Telangana Congress party.
KCR deliberately made the announcement with an obvious move to divert the attention of the media and the public from the visit of Congress national president Rahul Gandhi to Hyderabad.
He even released front page jacket advertisements in the newspapers the following day only to prevent the focus on Rahul Gandhi on the front page.
In fact, KCR has been saying that he would give party tickets to all the sitting MLAs of the party except probably half a dozen MLAs whose performance is weak or who were involved in controversies. So, there is nothing exciting about his announcement.
But what made the Congress leaders anxious is that KCR might dissolve the assembly any time in September to go in for early elections.
Though the Congress is also expecting early elections, it thought the elections could be in January or February. But, going by the statement of KCR, he might go in for polls along with other states in November.
So, the Telangana Congress is now compelled to start the process of selection of candidates.
On Tuesday, Rahul Gandhi also gave strict instructions to TPCC president Capt N Uttam Kumar Reddy to start the selection process immediately and send him the list of probable candidates within a couple of weeks.
In all probability, the Congress will release the list within days, if not hours of the TRS announces its list. And Uttam has a Herculean task before it.
“We are going to appoint an election committee shortly to commence the process of selection of candidates,” Uttam said.
