The curious case of Pusthe Srikanth, TRS candidate pitted against Asaduddin Owaisi in Hyderabad

HYDERABAD: No party star campaigners for him, no party appeal to public to vote for him and practically no expectations from him. This is the curious case of a Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) candidate who is ploughing a lonely furrow in the Lok Sabha elections.
As polling day advances on April 11 and with hardly a few days left for campaigning, 46-year-old Pusthe Srikanth is practically battling a goliath for a win from the Hyderabad Lok Sabha seat.


Being pitted against Asaduddin Owaisi in MIM’s citadel is something no ticket aspirant could have hoped or desired for, but Srikanth, an advocate by profession, took up the challenge.

Asaduddin is contesting for the fourth time from Hyderabad having won on all previous occasions. His father Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi had won six times from the seat before that.

“The TRS has good chances of winning the Hyderabad seat,” Srikanth says full of confidence. If anyone were to dismiss his claims, Srikanth argues that in the assembly elections in December 2018, the TRS got second position in all the segments under the constituency, except in Charminar. He also points out that the TRS had polled 40,000 votes in Goshamahal constituency.

“It is true the party’s star campaigners are not campaigning for me in the constituency. The MIM is a friendly party but that does not mean that I am not to fight the election. I have been directed by the party high command to contest and I am not leaving any stone unturned,” he said.

In all their election speeches, the TRS leadership, including chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and TRS working president K T Rama Rao talk of winning 16 out of 17 seats in the state in the Lok Sabha polls. They do not even consider winning in Hyderabad making it clear that it is the MIM’s guaranteed seat.

Srikanth is the party’s official nominee from the seat and he is going about campaigning for himself door-to-door. He does face some opposition sometimes from MIM cadres and also the BJP cadres. The MIM cadres wonder why he has to campaign when the TRS has an understanding with the BJP.

“The BJP cadres question me why I am out so much in the field campaigning. They say it would be of no value to get any votes as the MIM was a friendly party of the TRS. I tell everyone who argues with me that since the party has decided to field me, I will fight the poll battle,” he said.

Asked about what outcome he expects, Srikanth said the schemes introduced by the TRS government had reached the public and he can see people have a lot of faith in KCR. “I’m in the fray, irrespective of what the outcome will be, I am fighting,” he said.

Apart from Asaduddin Owaisi, he is pitted against Bhagwanth Rao of BJP and Feroz Khan of Congress.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, MIM’s Asaddudin Owaisi polled 5,13,868 votes, BJP’s Bhagwanth Rao polled 3,11, 414 votes, Congress's S Krishna Reddy polled 49,310 votes and TRS party’s Rashid Sharief polled 37,195 votes.