TRS had decided to take the election to the Council seriously :KCR

Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao was said to have informed the Telangana Rashtra Samithi Legislature Party meeting here on Monday that ten Congress MLAs were making efforts to join the TRS, but they were welcome only if they resigned their membership of Assembly and sought fresh election.

At the meeting which was held at the TRS office to conduct mock polling to ensure the victory of party candidates in Tuesday’s election to Legislative Council from MLAs quota, Mr. Rao was said to have disclosed that ten Congress MLAs, including four of them who have already come out openly, wanted to join TRS voluntarily but they were restrained.

“They have been told that they can go ahead only if they were confident of getting re-elected in bypolls,” sources said quoting Mr. Rao. Reacting to Congress’ decision to boycott elections to the Council, Mr. Rao said the party would not have polled more than ten votes in the 120-member Assembly if it remained in the race. Incidentally, reports about the Congress’ decision poured in the midst of the TRS meeting. Mr. Rao said the TRS had decided to take the election to the Council seriously after the Congress spurned the former’s initiative to ensure unanimous election. The offer was made because the Congress did not have numbers to ensure the victory of its candidate but the party did not heed. Instead, the Congress challenged that it would get two votes from TRS. “This, naturally, made us take the election as a matter of prestige”. He announced his decision to release the list of TRS candidates to contest 16 Parliamentary constituencies in a couple of days. He counselled sitting MPs in three or four seats not to get hurt if they were replaced. He assured them that they would get their due in the party.

Mr. Rao also announced that he would launch his election campaign from Karimnagar with a public meeting on March 17. The next meeting would be at Nizamabad on March 19. The MLAs of segments in each Parliamentary constituency should mobilise at least 2 lakh people for the meetings.