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Congressmen falling over each other to make Sonia contest from AP

Shireen in Hyderabad

Congressmen, including senior leaders, are vying with one another to invite the AICC president Sonia Gandhi to contest the snap polls to the Lok Sabha from one or the other constituency in Andhra Pradesh.

Congress Working Committee member and former chief minister Kotla Vijayabhaskar Reddy has invited Sonia Gandhi to contest the ensuing elections from Medak constituency, which was once represented by former prime minister Indira Gandhi.

Not to be outdone, the AP Congress Committee president, Dr Y S Rajasekhar Reddy, has made a plea to the AICC chief to contest from Cuddapah constituency, which was represented by him for four terms from 1989 to 1999. Cuddapah District Congress Committee president Sheik Hussain, who is a close supporter of Dr Rajasekhar Reddy, told a news conference a couple of days ago that Sonia Gandhi would be invited to seek election from Cuddapah.

According to Sheik Hussain, the APCC is determined to convince Sonia Gandhi to contest from Cuddapah. A delegation of DCC leaders will call on the AICC president and formally extend the invitation to her. He said that "Congressmen are keen to ensure victory of Madam with a record margin."

Congress leaders are also urging Sonia Gandhi to contest the polls from other constituencies. Congress MLA from Metpally, Jyothi Devi, met Sonia Gandhi in Delhi and urged her to fight the elections from Karimnagar constituency, which was represented in the 12th Lok Sabha by BJP first-timer Ch Vidyasagar Rao. Similar invitations were extended by other leaders, urging the AICC chief to make her electoral debut from constituencies such as Warangal and Nalgonda.

However, Congress sources said that chances of Sonia Gandhi contesting from any of the 15 constituencies in the Telangana region is remote. Barring Hyderabad and Secunderabad, all other constituencies are spread over Naxalite-affected areas of this backward region. Campaigning will be a problem owing to security considerations.

The outlawed People's War Group also regularly gives boycott calls of the polls in these areas in successive elections, though largely such calls have been ignored by the people. Heavy deployment of para-military forces also proves counter-productive as it happened at the time of 1994 Assembly elections when encounters and landmine blasts claimed a lot of lives.

Another ticklish problem facing the Congress in this region is the demand of a section of partymen for a separate Pradesh Congress Committee for Telangana, as a prelude to separate statehood for Telangana region on the lines of Uttaranchal, Vananchal and Chattisgarh. The APCC has been opposed to such a demand. Incidentally, the movement for a separate PCC for Telangana is led by M Baga Reddy, who represented Medak in the 12th Lok Sabha.

Indira Gandhi had contested from Medak apart from Rae Bareily in Uttar Pradesh in 1980 when the Congress came back to power after the fall of the Charan Singh government. She was elected by a record margin of 219,124 votes, trouncing her nearest Janata Party rival S Jaipal Reddy in a 10-cornered contest in Medak. She was elected from Rae Bareily also but preferred to keep the Medak seat. She represented Medak till her assassination on October 31, 1984.

In 1984 elections, however, senior Congress leader P Shiv Shankar contested the polls from Medak constituency but lost by a slender margin of just 1,816 votes to the Telugu Desam Party's P Manik Reddy. Later, the Congress candidate M Baga Reddy was returned from this constituency in 1989 elections with a majority of 96,096 votes. Baga Reddy retained the seat in three successive elections with margins of 140,150 votes in 1991, 27,489 votes in 1996 and 16,480 votes in 1998 polls. However, in the last two elections, he managed a victory owing to split of votes between the TDP and the BJP.

Now, some Congress leaders are opposed to Baga Reddy's renomination for the Medak seat since he held it for the last 10 years. Earlier, Baga Reddy represented the Zaheerabad constituency in the State Legislative Assembly for a record 32 years from 1957 to 1989. These leaders now think that inviting Sonia Gandhi to contest from Medak in the ensuing snap polls will mean "automatic denial of renomination" to Baga Reddy.

The invitation to Sonia Gandhi to contest from Cuddapah is also not without partisan considerations among Congressmen. The APCC president Rajasekhar Reddy's supporters say that he will not contest the Lok Sabha polls this time since he has been "picked up for the APCC slot" to lead the Congress to victory in the assembly elections in the state and walk away with the chief minister's post as reward. Hence, Rajasekhar Reddy wants to contest the Assembly polls from his native constituency, Pulivendula.

Congressmen also claim that Cuddapah, despite being faction-ridden, will be the safest constituency for Sonia Gandhi in Andhra Pradesh. The seat was won by Rajasekhar Reddy for four consecutive terms from 1989 to 1998. He secured a majority of 166,752 votes in 1989, which went up to 418,894 in 1991. However, he barely managed to scrape through with a margin of 5,445 votes in 1996 but improved the lead to 53,681 votes in 1998. Both in 1996 and 1998, Telugu Desam Party made an all-out attempt to defeat him.

"Now, in the changed scenario, where the TDP is a divided house in Cuddapah district and the Congress is rallying around Rajasekhar Reddy, the chances of the Congress have improved substantially. We will not make any boastful claims but we can deliver to the party high command whatever target they fix for the number of votes and the margin," said a Congress leader from Cuddapah. According to him, "It may be possible even to break the record set by then prime minister P V Narasimha Rao in Nandyal constituency in 1991 bypolls."

It may be recalled that Narasimha Rao created history of sorts by winning the Nandyal bypolls by a majority of 580,000 votes, which is the highest ever in Lok Sabha polls right from the first general elections. Narasimha Rao had trounced his nearest BJP rival, Bangaru Lakshman. His candidature was indirectly supported by the Telugu Desam Party since the party founder-patriarch N T Rama Rao did not field a candidate against Narasimha Rao --who was the first 'Telugu bidda' (Telugu son) to become prime minister. It is another story that in 1996 polls, Narasimha Rao retained the Nandyal seat by a considerably reduced majority of 98,530 votes. He quit the seat later and retained Berhampur.

Meanwhile the Bharatiya Janata Party is seeking an alliance with the Telugu Desam Party for the snap polls to the Lok Sabha. "The political environment is quite favourable for such an alliance between the two parties," according to Union Minister of State for Urban Affairs and Employment Bandaru Dattatreya.

Speaking to newspersons on Wednesday, Dattatreya said the "BJP has an open mind on the issue. It is for the TDP to respond. Under the present scenario, there is closer understanding between the two parties than ever before. If the TDP wants to bury the Congress in the state, it should seriously explore the possibilities of an alliance with the BJP."

The Union minister, who represented the Secunderabad constituency in the 12th Lok Sabha, said the BJP, with its tally of 18.2 pc of the votes polled in the last parliamentary elections in 1998 in Andhra Pradesh, had polled more than 200,000 votes each in at least 10 constituencies in those polls. At that time, the BJP had contested the Lok Sabha polls in the state almost alone, except for a tie-up with the NTR-TDP in three constituencies.

Dattatreya said it would be advantageous for the two parties, BJP and TDP, to fight the elections together and this would give them a distinct advantage over the Congress in regions such as Telangana, Rayalaseema and even coastal Andhra.

While adopting a 'cautious' approach on the issue of poll alliance with the BJP for the Lok Sabha polls, the TDP leadership is 'gradually' veering round to the view that electoral understanding could work out to the advantage of both the parties. For the record, the chief minister and TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu is non-committal on the issue. Party circles say that he is, however, seriously considering this option to face the formidable challenge from the Congress.

Apparently, the TDP's calculations are that the drop in the party's support base due to the alienation of minorities and the break with the Left parties could be compensated for by an electoral alliance with the BJP.

In another development Naidu on Wednesday said that his party would make Sonia Gandhi's 'foreigner status' an issue in the ensuing Lok Sabha elections.

"Sonia Gandhi is a foreigner. She got married to Rajiv Gandhi in 1968 but she did not take Indian citizenship till her husband became the prime minister in 1984. Even then, she opted for dual citizenship and did not give up her Italian citizenship," he said.

Naidu also claimed that at the time of the Indo-Pakistan war in 1971, Sonia Gandhi went to Italy. In the Lok Sabha polls held after the national emergency was lifted in 1977, Indira Gandhi was defeated and her family was in doldrums. At that time, Sonia Gandhi tried to go back to Italy and even approached her country's embassy, he alleged.

Naidu retorted that the Congress was afraid of facing early elections to the Lok Sabha because of the party's 'guilty feelings' for pulling down the Vajpayee government without having the wherewithal to form an alternative government. "We are not afraid of elections, even if held tomorrow. We are also not worried about simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and the Assembly. But the Congress is not prepared to face instant elections. The Congress leaders want the people to forget their destabilising role and that's why they want the snap polls to Lok Sabha to be held sometime in September or later," he contended.

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