Amaravati: After its pre-poll alliance with the TDP in neighbouring Telangana came a cropper, the Congress has asserted it would contest on its own the upcoming elections in Andhra Pradesh, both to the state Assembly and the Lok Sabha.
AICC general secretary and former Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy made the assertion on Wednesday while making it clear that the Congress will not have any alliance with the ruling Telugu Desam Party(TDP) in Andhra Pradesh.
“We will contest all 175 Assembly and 25 Lok Sabha seats alone. The TDP allied with us only at the national level, so we will have no truck (with it) in the state,” he maintained.
There was no official statement from the TDP on the development. However, some leaders were of the opinion that it was “better” for the Congress to leave. “Anyway, we were not going to get anything from them,” a worker said.
Addressing a press conference after a meeting of the PCC office-bearers here, Chandy said they would meet again on January 31 to discuss about the poll preparations. The state Congress also decided to undertake a bus yatra in all the 13 districts in February, he said.
APCC president N Raghuveera Reddy said they left the decision of electoral alliances to AICC president Rahul Gandhi. However, he hastened to add that the Congress would fight the elections in Andhra Pradesh on its own.
The Congress, which formed a pre-poll alliance with the TDP and two others for the recent Assembly polls in Telangana, ended up with 19 seats, down from 21 in 2014, while the TDP won two seats as against 15 last time. The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) won 88 seats in the 119-member Assembly to retain power.
Meanwhile, senior TDP leader and MP TG Venkaresh indicated that TDP and Janasena could tie-up for the polls. “We are ready to work together. We have to discuss about seat share. It will be finalised in March,” he said in Kurnool.
The “revelation”, however, did not go down well with Pawan Kalyan, who chose to rubbish his statement. “Don’t try to mislead people. We are contesting along with communists and not with TDP,” he said.