Congress to stay away from Telangana Council polls

Hyderabad, March 11 (IANS) Telangana's main opposition Congress on Monday decided to boycott the elections to state Legislative Council scheduled on Tuesday in protest against the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi's resorting to "engineering defections".

Accusing the TRS of undermining democracy by engineering defections in the opposition, state Congress chief Uttam Kumar Reddy said the party will not take part in the elections to the upper house.

Elections to five seats of the Council from the MLA quota are scheduled on Tuesday. Congress had fielded a candidate with the hope of getting support from both legislators of its ally Telugu Desam Party (TDP).

The Congress had 19 members in 119-member Assembly but with the defection of four MLAs during last one week, the tally has come down to 15. It required at least 21 votes to win the seat.

With one of the two TDP MLAs also crossing over to TRS, the ruling party is set to win four seats with the fifth seas going to its ally Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen.

Uttam Kumar Reddy said though they cooperated with TRS in unanimous election of Speaker and Deputy Speaker, the ruling party's attitude was undemocratic. He alleged that Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao was resorting to "undemocratic, illegal and unethical" practices to engineer defections in opposition parties.

Congress's floor leader in the Assembly, Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka said the TRS government's actions posed a threat to democracy.

"Opposition is required for a democracy to run effectively but the Chief Minister is trying to finish off the democracy by ensuring that there is no opposition," he said and called for a national debate on the happenings in Telangana.