The Hindu : Congress, TRS resume talks

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Feb 16, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Congress, TRS resume talks

By K.V. Prasad

NEW DELHI, FEB. 15. The talks for seat sharing between the Congress and the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) restarted in the capital today with both the parties re-emphasising on their known positions.

The TRS, is understood to have demanded a share of 51 Assembly seats from 107 constituencies in the region and at least seven from the 16 Lok Sabha constituencies. The Congress has expressed its willingness to accommodate up to 40 in the Assembly and four Lok Sabha seats, sources associated with the ongoing talks said here today.

Among the seven seats that the TRS is looking at include the constituencies of Adilabad, Nizamabad, Karimnagar, Medak and Khammam.

The Congress faces a peculiar situation since it has Renuka Chowdhary representing Khammam in the dissolved Lok Sabha. The seat has also been demanded by the Communist Party of India.

Sources said as a way out the Congress has suggested that perhaps a greater number of seats could be allocated to the TRS provided it accommodates both the Left parties (CPI and CPI-M) and the All India Majlis-Itthehad-Ul-Muslimeen (MIM). Immediate response of the TRS to this is not known.

The two Left parties between them, have also sought at least six Lok Sabha seats and nearly 50 seats in the Assembly, a majority of which fall in the Telangana region. The CPI is looking at Lok Sabha seats of Nalgonda, Bhadrachalam and Peddapalli, while the CPI(M) is looking at Khammam, Miryalaguda and Nellore.

The Congress party has deputed senior leaders Pranab Mukherjee and Ghulam Nabi Azad, who is in-charge of party affairs in the State, for seat-sharing talks.

The Lok Janshakti party leader, Ram Vilas Paswan, is also negotiating on behalf of TRS in order to ensure that the anti-Telugu Desam-Bharatiya Janata Party votes in Andhra do not get divided. Mr. Paswan's party has been supporting the cause of separate Telangana, a demand on which the TRS founder K. Chandrashekar Rao left the TDP to float his outfit.

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Andhra Pradesh