File photo of Digvijaya Singh
At a time when major opinion polls have predicted a poor show for the Congress in Andhra Pradesh over the state's bifurcation, senior party leader Digvijaya singh has said the party was preparing to contest all seats in Telangana.
"As far as we are concerned, we are prepared for any eventuality and we are going ahead to fight all the 119 (assembly) seats and all the 17 seats of Parliament," he said.
Mr Singh, who was in Hyderabad on Friday for discussion on suitable candidates for Parliament and assembly elections, said the Congress was surprised when the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) said they would not merge with the Congress.
"KCR had promised both Mrs Sonia Gandhi and also me, that when Telangana is formed, there would be no more reason for the TRS to exist and so they would be ready to merge their party. Now they say committee under Keshav Rao would talk alliances," he said.
Asked by NDTV if KCR had demanded to be made the first chief minister of Telangana, Mr Singh answered cryptically, but conveying just what he wanted to say: "not directly".
He said the process of candidate selection by the Congress for both Telangana and Seemandhra would be completed by March 28.
Mr Singh said Kiran Kumar Reddy had disappointed both him and the Congress party. "He said he would abide by the High Command's decision, he did not. He said he would not resign, he did. He said he would not start a new pary. He did," said Mr Singh, who is the Congress party's Andhra Pradesh in-charge.
On Arvind Kejriwal's comment labelling some media as corrupt and "paid", Mr Singh said the AAP leader was still an activist and got upset when things did not go his way.