The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Grand alliance partners play hide-and-seek

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Wednesday, Mar 04, 2009
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Grand alliance partners play hide-and-seek

Special Correspondent

Stay away from seat-sharing talks; proposed joint public meeting in Secunderabad may not be held

TDP appeals to alliance party leaders to scale down their demand for seats
Talks unlikely till final figures are agreed upon, say second rung leaders

HYDERABAD: The Telugu Desam and the other grand alliance partners, the TRS and Left parties, seem to be playing hide-and-seek on sharing of seats, alternatively participating and skipping the crucial talks to convey their feelings.

On Tuesday, the grand alliance partners did not meet at “11.30 a.m. as scheduled” and for most part of the day touching off speculation that there were problems over seats. Word went round that leaders of the TRS and Left parties avoided meeting their TDP counterparts as the latter were not yet inclined to discuss the number of seats each of them would contest, though the election schedule has been announced.

Hard bargaining

The TDP and alliance partners have been bargaining hard over the numbers during the last few days. Both CPI and CPI (M) have indicated 40-odd Assembly seats and three Lok Sabha seats each, while the TRS has put forth its claim to over 45 Assembly and 10 Lok Sabha seats. Without getting into the actual number of seats it plans to leave, the TDP reportedly appealed to the leadership of the three parties to scale down their demand.

As a final agreement was elusive, second rung leaders of the TRS and Left parties started throwing hints to mediapersons on Tuesday that the “talks may not take place till the numbers are finalised” and that their top leaders were “not happy with the way things are going on.” Obviously the attempt was to use the skipping of the meeting to continue the suspense and convey the message that the party leadership was unhappy.

Speculation all through

Later in the day, the same leaders and those of the TDP clarified that the meeting scheduled at 11.30 a.m. was to discuss whether or not to hold the massive public meeting planned jointly by the alliance partners at Parade Grounds here. It was not meant to discuss seat-sharing. As most of the top leaders were pre-occupied, it was deferred to evening, by which time it became clear that the grand alliance had almost dropped the proposal to hold the public meeting.

Speculation then turned to why the public meeting was cancelled with reports suggesting that it was because of the differences over seat-sharing.

Dismissing the speculation, the leaders traced it to the non-availability of the Parade Grounds on March 9, the Third Front meeting at Bangalore on March 12 and no other auspicious day in between. Dates after March 12 have been ruled out as they would be too close to the polling days.

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