The two Left parties, the CPI (Marxist) and the CPI, have decided to contest on their own in the forthcoming elections to the Legislative Assembly.
The CPI (M) has announced a list of 17 constituencies from which it will field its candidates. The CPI is likely to announce its choice of constituencies after the party’s State executive meeting scheduled on Friday.
The CPI (M), which was initially firm on contesting from Miryalaguda, Palair, Bhadrachalam, Ibrahimpatnam, Madhira and Nalgonda constituencies, has increased the number to 17, with a majority in erstwhile Khammam and Nalgonda districts, in addition to Ibrahimpatnam, which it represented in the past and Musheerabad and Patancheru constituencies within the GHMC limits.
The two Left parties intended to go along with BRS and had intimated about the seats of their choice to the BRS leadership. But the latter went ahead and announced its candidates for 115 out of the 119 constituencies.
The Left leaders saw political reasons behind BRS president and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s ‘unilateral’ decision to distance from the alliance. CPI State secretary Kunamaneni Sambasaiva Rao went ahead, suspecting that the BRS appeared to be going soft on the BJP. Left with no other alternative, the leaders of the two parties held meetings with the Congress, a party with which they had maintained considerable distance for some time now, to discuss seat sharing arrangements.
Though the Congress leadership responded positively for the understanding, it remained non-committal with regard to the number of seats it was willing to give to the Left. With less than 24 hours remaining for the issuance of notification for the election, the Left parties apparently made up their mind to go it alone while ensuring that there are no differences between the two.
In this context, it will be interesting to see the choice of constituencies that the CPI will announce after the executive meeting.
