Hyderabad: The Nagarjuna Sagar constituency is ready to witness a triangular battle between the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and the opposition congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the by-pole on 17 April.
Seven times, lawmaker and former Congressman K. Jana Reddy will take on two newcomers – Nomula Bhagat of TRS and P. Ravi Kumar Naik of the BJP.
Congress’s interests are high, as the seat of the TRS appears to be being torn down to revive its fortunes in its former stronghold ahead of the 2023 Assembly polls.
The TRS is doing everything in its power to retain the seat and maintain the sympathy factor by introducing Nomula Bhagat, the son of Nomula Narasimhaiah, whose death caused the vacancy.
Bhagat (36) is a practitioner in the High Court and is highly trained. He pursued an engineering qualification (B.Tech), and he also pursued business management (MBA) and law (LLB and LLM). Although he was actively involved in his father’s campaign in 2014 and 2018, Bhagat is a political beginner ahead of Jana Reddy
TRS President and Prime Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao selected Bhagat as the party candidate to make money from the alleged sympathy factor. This was despite the fact that TRS lost the Dubbak meeting to BJP in November last year, although the ruling party sued S. Sujatha, the widow of S. Ramalinga Reddy, whose death was the most urgent necessity. has.
Political observers believe that caste factor is likely to play a key role in the by-election. TRS has introduced Bhagat, a member of the Yadav community, which makes up 40 percent of more than two lakh voters in the constituency.
Jana Reddy comes from the Reddy community which was a dominant force in the combined Nalgonda district.
The party will make a lot of money from the charisma of Jana Reddy, who won the seat in 2009 and 2014.
He was previously elected five times from the Chalakurthy constituency, which became the Nagarjuna Sagar in 2009.
The BJP has nominated a tribe as the constituency 40,000 Lambadi voters. Ravi Kumar Naik, a doctor, only joined the saffron party last month. He resigned his government job as a medical officer from a primary health center a year ago to start a private practice.
After the shock defeat against the BJP in Dubbak, TRS dares no chance in Nagarjuna Sagar. The prime minister, who has not yet fought for TRS in Dubbak, addressed a public meeting in Sagar on February 10 when he announced 14 levy irrigation schemes on the Nagarjuna Sagar canal from the left bank with a budget of 3000 million. He will address another constituency meeting on April 14.
TRT’s acting president, and Chandrasekhar Rao’s son KT Rama Rao, are also likely to hold road shows to bolster the party’s chances.
Unlike in Dubbak, where the BJP was locked in a direct clash with TRS, Sagar will be watching a triangular match. Congress appears to be TRS’s biggest rival here, though the saffron party is determined to make a surprise.
In 2018, Nomula Narasimhaiah won Nagarjuna Sagar seat by defeating Jana Reddy of Congress by about 8,000 votes. Nomula cast 83,655 votes while Jana Reddy received 75,884 votes.
BJP’s K. Niveditha Reddy cast only 2,675 votes. Hoping that the party would nominate her as a candidate, Niveditha submitted the nomination, but the party ignored her. Her nomination was also rejected.
While BJP’s central leader, charged with party affairs in the state of Tarun Chug, and state leaders are conducting an intense campaign, the saffron party has not caught up with any central leader. This is in contrast to the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) election in December when several central leaders, including Home Affairs Minister Amit Shah and the party’s national president, JP Nadda, campaigned for the party.
Veteran of Congress, Jana Reddu, is busy with his clean image and also the sympathy factor he lost during the 2018 election. TRS, on the other hand, points out to Jana Reddy that she has not done any development work in the constituency, even though it has been proposed for a very long time.
Jana Reddy also challenged the TRS to sit at home without campaigning and they were willing to do the same if they believed in the development they were doing. “Let the voters decide,” the congressional leader said.
TRS is confident that various welfare schemes implemented by the state government will ensure its victory. The party has identified nearly 1.36 lakh voters as beneficiaries of government schemes in the constituency. The ruling party leaders also believe that people prefer his candidate so that the development of the constituency is not affected.
TRS also did a shock in front of the polls against BJP by luring the latter’s ticket aspirant Kadari Anjaiah Yadav into his kraal. Anjaiah Yadav contested the 2014 election of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and received more than 27,000 votes. The ruling party expects it to further strengthen its position by securing the support of the entire Yadav community.
This is a do or die situation for Congress. After a series of setbacks since the 2018 election session, Congress is looking for a turnaround. In Sagar, the party will be heavy on Jana Reddy’s bench
After the ballots in 2018, Congress loses 12 of its 19 MLAs to TRS. The party also lost the seat of the Huzurabad assembly in 2019 to TRS during the by-election caused by the resignation of Uttam Kumar Reddy, head of state unit, after his election to the Lok Sabha.
Congress faced a humiliating defeat in the polls of Dubbak and GHMC. With BJP as an alternative to TRS following the victory in Dubbak and impressive performance in the GHMC election, Congress has had a difficult challenge to survive.
The result of last month’s election to two seats on the Constitutional Council is also a shot in the arm for TRS. The ruling party removed the constituency of one BJP graduate and retained the other one.
TRS has deployed several ministers and legislators to ensure the candidate’s victory. Ministers like G. Jagadish Reddy, Talasani Srinivas Yadav, Mahmood Ali and half a dozen MLAs are campaigning in the constituency.
There are 41 candidates in the fight, including 14 candidates from national, regional and smaller parties, while there are 27 independents.
Source: The Siasat Daily