Congress rules out electoral alliance with TRS

Hyderabad: The Congress on Sunday made it clear that it will not have an alliance with the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) in Telangana.

Party MP and incharge of party affairs in Telangana, Manickam Tagore dismissed rumours of an electoral alliance with the ruling TRS for the next year’s Assembly elections.

“The rumours of Congress coalition with TRS are totally false. Congress won’t move back an inch from our commitment to save Telangana from TRS & BJP. Let this be crystal clear to those spreading rumours,” he said in a tweet.

Tagore also told the party cadres to prepare for the May 6 rally at Warangal which will be addressed by party leader Rahul Gandhi.

He on Saturday announced that Gandhi will visit Telangana on May 6-7 and hold a meeting with the party leaders in Hyderabad on May 7.

Tagore tweeted that they welcome their leader after achieving 40 lakh membership enrollment.

During the digital membership enrollment drive, which concluded two days ago, the state Congress has enrolled 40 lakh members.

Gandhi had also told the state party leaders early this month that there would be no truck with the K. Chandrasekhar Rao-led TRS.

State Congress chief A. Revanth Reddy had said after a meeting with Gandhi that the latter made it clear that the Congress will not forge an alliance with the TRS.

Gandhi’s visit, the first to Telangana since 2019 Lok Sabha elections, is seen as an attempt to revitalise the party in the state.

The Congress suffered a series of setbacks since the 2018 Assembly elections. It won only 19 seats in 119-member Assembly in 2018 when the TRS retained power with a huge majority. A few months after the polls, at least a dozen legislators of the Congress defected to the TRS.

With just six MLAs, Congress also lost the status of main opposition party in the Assembly. It also suffered a humiliating defeat in by-elections to a couple of Assembly seats, which the BJP won to project itself as the viable alternative to the TRS.