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Wild twists in ticket allotment by TRS

Special Correspondent

KCR from Mahabubnagar, Vijayashanti from Medak

HYDERABAD: The candidate selection exercise by the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) took several twists and turns on Saturday as utter confusion prevailed about who was contesting from where.

Matters came to head when film star Vijayashanti flatly turned down the offer of party president K. Chandrasekhar Rao to contest from Mahabubnagar Lok Sabha constituency on the ground that she had been earlier sounded out for Medak. This forced Mr. Rao to opt for Mahabubnagar himself and declare her as candidate for the Medak Lok Sabha seat even though internal surveys revealed that the TRS was not strong in the former.

The Vijayashanti imbroglio took place after Mr. Rao had filed his nomination from Medak earlier in the day. He sent in his papers to the Returning Officer at Sangareddy through an advocate.

The TRS chief earlier withdrew Devara Mallappa and Vasanthi Mudiraj from Goshamahal and Wanaparthi Assembly constituencies respectively. They were the only ones to be denied B forms after being officially named among the list of 47 Assembly candidates late on Friday night. Mr. Mallappa’s supporters staged a noisy demonstration outside Mr. Rao’s house.

Another aspirant K.P. Rambabu who on Friday assaulted TRS candidate for Secunderabad Lok Sabha seat, Samala Venkat Reddy, tried to block the way of KCR by parking a car on the road as the latter was leaving the house.

In the Telangana Bhavan, irate women covered the statue of Telangana Talli with cloth to express resentment.

The confusion was such that TRS leaders were unsure about the number of Assembly seats that the party would contest after the tally fell from 47 to 45 with the pulling out of Mr. Mallappa and Ms. Vasanthi.

The party had earlier surrendered the Atchampet Assembly seat to TDP even after naming a candidate. Initially, the TRS and TDP were supposed to share the 119 Assembly seats in Telangana equally after allotment of about 15 seats to the Left parties but no leader could hazard a guess about how many seats the party will finally contest.

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