Congress To Contest Elections In Andhra Pradesh Alone

After its pre-poll alliance with the Telugu Desam Party in neighbouring Telangana came a cropper, the Congress on Wednesday asserted it would contest on its own the upcoming elections in Andhra Pradesh, both in the state Assembly and the Lok Sabha.

All India Congress Committee general secretary and former Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy made it clear that the Congress will not have any alliance with the ruling TDP in Andhra Pradesh. “We will contest all 175 Assembly and 25 Lok Sabha seats alone,” he said. “The TDP allied with us only at the national level, so we will have no truck (with it) in the state.”

Addressing a press conference after a meeting of the Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee office-bearers, Chandy said they would meet again on Jan. 31 to discuss about the poll preparations. The state Congress also decided to undertake a bus yatra in all the 13 districts in February, he said.

APCC president N Raghuveera Reddy said they left the decision of electoral alliances to AICC president Rahul Gandhi. However, he hastened to add that the Congress would fight the elections in Andhra Pradesh on its own.

The Congress, which formed a pre-poll alliance with the TDP and two others for the recent Assembly polls in Telangana, ended up with 19 seats, down from 21 in 2014, while the TDP won two seats as against 15 last time.

The Telangana Rashtra Samithi won 88 seats in the 119-member Assembly to retain power.