CPM to contest on 17 seats in Telangana Assembly polls

Vexed at the delay by the Congress in finalising seat sharing with the Left parties for the Telangana Assembly polls, the CPM on Thursday called off the alliance and decided to contest from 17 constituencies on its own.

The CPM state committee held a marathon meeting here on Thursday on the issue before announcing its decision. The CPI on the other hand will hold its state committee meeting on Friday to take a decision on the route ahead.

The Left parties are angry at the Congress high command for failing to give a clarity on seat sharing so far even though the filing of nominations for the polls commences from Friday.

The Congress had offered to allot two seats each



to the CPI and the CPM but failed to give a clarity on which four seats will be allotted to Left parties so far.

CPM state secretary Tammineni said as of now the CPM has decided to contest 17 seats which include Bhadrachalam, Aswaraopet, Palair, Madhira, Wyra, Khammam, Sathupalli, Miryalaguda, Nalgonda, Nakrekal, Bhongir, Huzurnagar, Kodad, Jagagaon, Ibrahimpatnam, Patancheru and Musheerabad.

He said that the party's district committees had sent proposals to contest 24 seats but 17 have been finalised so far. "We will consider contesting a few more seats in a day or two and if CPI and CPM form an alliance, we will make changes accordingly," he said.