Congress fears cross voting in RS polls

Hyderabad: The spectre of cross-voting and rebel trouble looms large over the ruling Congress ahead of Rajya Sabha elections.Former Minister J C Diwakar Reddy is likely to file his nomination as a rebel candidate and could disturb the calculations of the Congress.

His entry may trigger cross voting. Another rebel Congress leader and MLC KVV Satyanarayana Raju aka Chaitanya Raju is also eager to enter the fray as rebel candidate.

Though he has been lobbying for party ticket, he may not hesitate to enter the fray as an independent. He is also likely to file his nomination on Monday, according to his personal aides.

According to sources, Chaitanya Raju is being encouraged by the Congress rebel MPs U Arun Kumar, Harsha Kumar, L Rajagopal and Sai Prathap to contest the RS polls. They pinned hopes on cross voting and are confident of his victory in the RS polls.

However, entry of Raju and Diwakar Reddy will make the situation more complicated for the Congress central leadership, forcing it to resort to disciplinary actions against legislators who support the rebels.

On Thursday, the party president Sonia Gandhi met senior leaders including Ahmed Patel, Digvijay Singh, AK Antony, Sushil Kumar Shinde and Ghulam Nabi Azad to discuss the party's strategy for the forthcoming Rajya Sabha polls. It assumed significance as former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and Motilal Vora also joined the discussions at a later stage.

Sources said Sonia was upset with the developments in the Andhra Pradesh Congress. She asked Digvijay Singh to summon Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy to the national capital on Friday as a last ditch effort to make him fall in line with the party.

Besides, PCC chief Botsa Satyanarayana has also been summoned to Delhi to finalise the RS candidates. However, Kiran might turn down the summons, as he is said to be getting ready to call it quits from the party.

The Congress is going to field three candidates for the RS polls and it was confident till now that the present strength in the House would be enough to see them through. However, the rebel act by Diwakar Reddy is going to upset the calculation and would force it to redraw its strategy.

Diwakar Reddy by mustering the support of 11 legislators U Narasimha Reddy, V Geetha, P Gandhi, B Satyananda Rao, Sathish Kumar, T Trimurthulu, YV Ravi, Asok Babu and three more legislators of Seemandhra Congress for filing nomination, would deprive the Congress the same and the party has to make a tight rope walking during the polling phase.

However, the PCC president has taken a serious view of the legislators supporting a rebel candidate and warned them of dire consequences if they continue to support Diwakar Reddy. If the rebels have their way, the votes for the Congress' official candidates would come down to 136 and if more Seemandhra legislators support him, they would go down further.

Since a candidate needs 39 votes to win, Diwakar Reddy might poach for 28 more votes from the Seemandhra Congress and this would bring down votes available for the official candidates to 106.

With these numbers, Congress could win only two seats comfortably and could not hope for a third one. In such an eventuality, it will be a major embarrassment for the party high command.

It has to take the support of seven-member MIM and votes of the independents to ensure the victory of official candidates. Congress has 97 legislators from Seemandhra and 49 from Telangana region and Telangana Congress legislators would not vote for Diwakar Reddy and he has to get the support of Seemandhra legislators.

Since he would not be given A and B forms of Congress for becomingofficial candidate, he would become an independent candidate and would be free to get the votes of any party.

He may try to get the votes of Telugu Desam Party as well.Another major problem being confronted by Congress is the fear of cross voting. If Congress Seemandhra legislators cross the line and vote in favor of Diwakar Reddy, that would disturb the prospects of official nominees.