HYDERABAD: Barely nine months ago, the ruling TRS had won all the municipalities and wards in the Dubbak assembly constituency and in Siddipet district apart from securing gram panchayats in the local bodies elections. On Tuesday, the byelection result from the constituency came as a rude shock to the TRS leadership.
Even as the leadership began analysing on what went wrong in Dubbak, party leaders said a weak candidate, party’s overconfidence, sympathy towards BJP candidate Raghunandan Rao and more importantly, absence of chief minister and party president K Chandrasekhar Rao in the poll campaign had contributed to the defeat of the party.
Soon after the result, party working president KT Rama Rao said: “Our party will review the Dubbak results and analyse the voting pattern.” He recalled the party had won all the elections in the last six-and-a-half years.
Usually, the ruling party has an advantage in a by-election. More so, after the demise of a sitting legislator where in the family member gets elected without any hitch. A year ago, in Huzurnagar bypoll, which was necessitated following the resignation of TPCC president N Uttam Kumar Reddy, who got elected as an MP from Nalgonda, the TRS registered a thumping win. But, it wasn’t the case in Dubbak.
A senior TRS functionary said the party had failed to gauge the mood of the people. Both KCR and KTR did not canvass in Dubbak on the assumption that people would vote for the TRS based on KCR’s and government’s performances. “Dubbak is a rural constituency and we had won the seat thrice. The majority last time was over 62,000 votes. While about 78,000 farmers have been getting Rythu Bandhu benefits, another 60,000 are getting Aasara pensions in the constituency. And yet, we faced a defeat,” he said.
In the 2018 elections, the party was helped by the government’s pro-farmer schemes such as Rythu Bandhu, Rythu Bima, welfare schemes like Aasara pensions to old aged, beedi workers and Kalyana Lakshmi-Shaadi Mubark. “This time too, the leadership thought these schemes will help the party win the seat,” a party leader said.
Political analyst S Nagesh Kumar said the TRS did not gauge the BJP’s strength in the constituency and violent incidents in Siddipet and cash seizure just before the polling helped the saffron party gain sympathy. “Secondly, the villages that were affected by Mallanna Sagar project also worked against the ruling party. Also, a majority of anti-incumbency votes went to BJP not to Congress though the party had appointed leaders for each village and AICC secretary in-charge of Telangana Manickam Tagore monitoring the campaign,” he told TOI.