TRS loss is BJP’s gain in Telangana

Naveen S Garewal
|Tribune News Service
Hyderabad, May 23

Within months of a clean sweep in assembly elections, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) appears to have lost some ground to the Bharatiya Janata Party, which improved its tally in the state.

The BJP, which won one seat in last year’s assembly elections in Telangana, is leading in four seats of 17 parliamentary seats in the state. The Congress—the principal opposition in the state—is leading in three seats and the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) in one, leaving the TRS with a lead in only nine parliamentary seats.

With these elections, it appears that the hopes of Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao (KCR) of playing a major role in national politics through his Federal Front have been dashed to the ground. What has hit the chief minister’s image further that his daughter and Nizamabad MP K. Kavitha is trailing behind the BJP by 49,065 votes and is likely to lose. All this has happened at a time when KCR handed over the command of the party to his son KT Rama Rao (KTR) by appointing him working president.

Initial leads for the BJP came from the three parliamentary segments in the north. Adjoining segments of Adilabad, Nizamabad and Karimnagar gave the BJP some hope, but later the trends moved to the twin cities of Secunderabad and Hyderabad, where the BJP holds its single assembly seat in the Goshamahal segment (held by Raja Singh). Hyderabad has been the bastion of All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) where its president Asadudin Owaisi has won three times. Hyderabad seat saw a seesaw contest before turning in favour of the AIMIM.

Interestingly, the Congress fielded a reluctant leader—Madhu Goud Yashki, who is the party’s national spokesperson.

The BJP candidate Arvind Dharmapuri is the younger son of TRS Rajya Sabha member Dharmapuri Srinivas. He joined the BJP in 2017 and undertook 120-km padayatra from Jagityal to Bodhan highlighting the failure of the TRS regime to take over the Nizam Sugar Factory last year. At one stage, when the former MP Madhu Yaskhi Goud was reportedly not interested in contesting from the constituency, Congress party elders wanted to woo Dharmapuri into being the party’s candidate.

Kavitha, who is trailing in Nizamabad, is up against 178 farmers who contested in protest against non-fulfilment of demands of setting up a Turmeric Board in the state. This constituency became the one with the largest number of candidates in the country, besides creating a controversy is EVMs could handle so many candidates or the polling would have to be done on paper ballots.

Congress state President Uttam Reddy, whose aspirations to become chief minister were dashed to the ground in December 2018 when the Congress managed to win only 19 out of 117 assembly segments is however in the lead from Nalgonda segment. The other places where the Congress is leading are Malkajgiri where A Revanth Reddy is contesting and Chelvella, where the country’s second richest candidates and the sitting MP Konda Vishweshwar Reddy switched from TRS to contest on a Congress seat.

Chief Minister KCR has tweeted to congratulate Prime Minister Narendra Modi, just as has his son and TRS President KTR.