Rebel factor plagues Opposition

Hyderabad

March 29: Rebel trouble is the Opposition parties with disgruntled leaders of the three major parties, the Telugu Desam, Telangana Rashtra Samiti and the Praja Rajyam, planning to upset the winning chances of the official nominees.
The TD is facing trouble not only in the constituencies which its candidates are in the fray but also in those seats left to the partners of the Grand Alliance.
For instance, the party’s Adilabad district president, Mr Gone Hanumantha Rao, has filed his nomination for the Manchiryal Assembly seat to take on the party’s official candidate.
Nine such “ditched” leaders have also filed their nominations in Adilabad district itself.
Likewise, the former MLA and senior party leader, Mr B. Ch. Garataiah, has filed his nomination for the Addanki seat to take on the official candidate, Mr K. Balarama Krishnamurthy. Several other leaders who were denied tickets are also planning to file their nominations shortly.
In the TRS, 10 rebels have so far filed their nominations defying the leadership to defeat the party’s official candidates.
For the Karimnagar Assembly seat, Mr Katari Devender Rao and Mr Ravinder Singh have filed nominations against the wishes of the party leadership.
As for the Praja Rajyam, trouble is brewing for its chief, Chiranjeevi, in Tirupati, where two party men have vowed to fight him for not allotting them tickets.
Mr Ramakotaiah, who was denied ticket for the Nuziveedu seat, has vowed to take on Chiranjeevi “in order to let people know about the PR leadership’s hollowness in providing social justice.
Another Praja Rajyam leader, Ms Chandu Supriya, a physically-challenged person, has also decided to contest from Tirupati as an independent, to expose the “non-fulfilment of PR chief’s promise of allotting seats to differently-abled persons”.
Surprisingly, unlike earlier, this time the Congress is the only party in which dissidence activity is minimal.