Telangana Congress Asks Candidates to File Affidavit to Avoid Defections

New Delhi: As a precautionary measure, Telangana Congress said that it would consider taking affidavits from its candidates in the local body elections to not to leave the party after winning polls from the party ticket.

Senior Congress leader Gudur Narayana Reddy told News18, “It is a precautionary measure, more like a deterrent. The leaders are answerable to the people who have cast their vote for them, preferring a particular political party. And if they switch parties after polls, it would be like cheating the people, more than the party.”

Congress is struggling to retain its position after 10 of its 19 MLAs, who won in the recent Assembly polls, moved to K Chandrashekhar Rao’s Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS).

The candidates, who wish to contest, will have to make a declaration saying that they will not move to any other party in case of a victory in the next Zilla and Mandal constituency polls, according to party working president Ponnam Prabhakar.

It is a non-stop election fever in the state as Telangana is bracing itself for Mandal Parishad and Zilla Parishad Territorial Constituencies polls, next month, after the Lok Sabha elections.

The party said that B-forms, which a candidate needs to fill to contest any election, will be given only to those leaders who will submit an affidavit declaring the same.

Defections of its MLAs posed a major risk to Congress’ status as an opposition in the state, a party which was once one of the largest oppositions has now lost ground in Telangana.

The notifications for 5,817 MPTC (Mandal Parishad Territorial Constituencies polls) posts and 583 ZPTC (Zilla Parishad Territorial Constituencies polls) posts are likely to be issued sometime on Saturday by the Telangana State Election Commission.

The upcoming polls, which are set to be held in three phases, are the fourth round of polls in Telangana, in a span of a year.

More than 1.56 crore voters are expected to exercise their franchise in about 32,000 polling stations across the state, according to the state election commission.

Chief Minister KCR’s party TRS, which is riding high, on the recent victory in assembly elections, is hoping to put up a similar show in the Zilla and Mandal polls as well.