Ruling, Oppn parties gear up for indirect polls

Hyderabad, Jul 10 (UNI) The ruling Congress and the Opposition TDP reached an understanding with their allies and taken all precautions to prevent 'poaching' of newly-elected ZPTC and MPTC members by their rivals ahead of the indirect elections to the 22 Zilla Parishads today.

The suspense continued in Khammam as both the Congress-CPI-TRS alliance and the TDP-CPI(M) were tied 22 seats each in the 46-member house and the CPI(ML) New Democracy, which holds all important two ZPTC seats, had announced it would not extend support to any of the combines.

After CPI(M) Politburo Member and State Secretary B V Raghavulu indicated his party was not averse to taking support from the Congress, Pradesh Congress Chief K Keshava Rao told mediapersons there was no question of supporting the marixst party in Khammam.

''Let the chairperson's post be decided by toss as there is a tie'', he added.

The 1,097 members of various parties came in procession along with their supporters and took oath before the crucial indirect elections in which the Congress was confident of bagging the chairperson's post in 16 of the 22 Zilla Parishads and win majority in two other ZPs reaching an understanding with the allies.

The TDP, which won a majority of the ZPs in Anantapur, Adilabad and Rangareddy, has taken all steps to keep its flock together so that it was not outwitted in the indirect elections by its rival.

The Congress offered to the TRS, Chairman's post in Nizamabad Zilla Parishad and Vice-chairman's post in Warangal, Medak and Karimnagar as part of electoral understanding.

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