On the eve of the counting of votes of Telangana Assembly polls, leaders of the ‘Maha Alliance’ – leaders of Congress, Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Telangana Jana Samiti (TJS) and CPI – called on Governor ESL Narasimhan to putforth their plea to treat their alliance as a ‘single entity’ instead of an alliance of a few parties.

The leaders literally staked claim to form the next Govt. by requestign the Governor to treat the ‘grand alliance’ as a single entity.  “We should be given the chance first to make an attempt to form the Govt. in case the results threw up a hung Assembly,” they asserted.  As already reported, the 4-party alliance has been keen to upset the plans of the K. Chandrasekhara Rao-led Telangana Rashtriya Samiti (TRS) Govt.

Emerging from the Raj Bhavan after meetign the Governor, the leaders told news persons that as the alliance was sutured prior to the polls, it ought to be considered as a single entity and should be given preference in case of a hung Assembly scenario.  “We hav told the Governor that electoral performance of all these parties should be counted and taken up as a single entity,” they said.

“In case the Governor is in a position to decide which party has the most number of seats to invite it to form the next Govt., we have told them to consider our alliance as a single entity,” Congress leader Narayana Reddy pointed out.  Political observers say that the move could have been intended to upset the calculations of the ruling TRS as well as to instill chaos in the Governor’s mind in case a hung Assembly springs up.

“We only requested the Governor not to follow the examples in neighbouring Karntaka and Goa.  We don’t want any confusion and have putforth a simple plea to the Governor to treat us (alliance) as a single party (entity).  We are sure of getting a majoirty (in the Assembly) and forming the next Government,” Reddy asserted.