HYDERABAD: The Congress Legislature Party (CLP), after a two-and-a-half hour-long meeting here on Monday, concluded that the party was on a strong footing in spite of its poor performance in Karimnagar Lok Sabha byelection.

The post-mortem of the byelection, in which Congress candidate T. Jeevan Reddy lost to Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao by 2.01-lakh votes, began with an explanation by former Minister M. Satyanarayana Rao that his challenge to the TRS was misunderstood.

He maintained that it was a personal challenge and he wanted the election to be on a non-party basis.

Sentiment

APCC president K. Keshav Rao, who was also blamed for precipitating the byelection, attributed the TRS' margin of victory to sentiment.

Some Ministers and MLAs who campaigned for the Congress candidate in the election admitted "mistakes" during the campaign but Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy, brushed aside their view as irrelevant since the election witnessed a wave in favour of Telangana sentiment.

However, the ruling party should not lose heart with the defeat as even Mr. Chandrasekhar Rao did not criticise the Government on its developmental agenda. Bobbili Lok Sabha result was an approval of the Government's policies, he pointed out.

Contentious issue

B. Jhansi Lakshmi, the newly-elected Member of Parliament from Bobbili, was greeted by the members with applause.

Her husband and Marketing Minister B. Satyanarayana was all smiles at the meeting.

The meeting, however, witnessed a fresh round of arguments and counter-arguments on the Pothireddipadu head regulator issue when P. Janardhan Reddy objected to the resumption of works on the project.

The Rayalaseema MLAs were quick to pick up an argument with him, it is learnt.

Mr. Janardhan Reddy reportedly demanded take over of lands allotted to Emaar Properties and took objection to handing over Gandhi Medical College land at Basheerbagh to the builder who had violated various norms for the shopping mall at Panjagutta.

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