HYDERABAD: Banking on its ‘pro-women’ agenda, the State BJP has fielded a woman to oppose the might of Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao in his backyard - Gajwel Assembly constituency of Siddipet district. BJP Mahila Morcha president Akula Vijaya is all set to battle it out against KCR on an underlining fact that the TRS-led government had no women minister in its cabinet.
“There are nine women ministers in the Union cabinet but there isn’t one in KCR’s cabinet in the past four years,” pointed out Vijaya while speaking to TNIE over the phone from Gajwel after filing her nomination. “Women know the injustice that is being done to them. The women are looked down upon,” she added.
The main contestation point to get into the elections is to highlight the fact that 2BHK houses have not been given. “It’s every woman’s dream to secure a house and it was promised by KCR. But the promise hasn’t been fulfilled with several spending days in anticipation of the 2BHK houses,” she reasoned.
But the Gajwel turf is a foreign constituency for Vijaya. In 2014 Assembly elections, she fought against KCR’s son IT minister KT Rama Rao in Sircilla. She was bundled out with 14,473 votes and stood third among other contestants with TRS and the Congress taking first and second place. Now, with her latest nomination at Gajwel, her chances of winning are bleak. Considering the fact that she would not just be facing the might of the TRS supremo but also the Congress’ Vanteru Pratap Reddy who lost with 19,218 votes.
But Vijaya is unfazed with that. “My groundwork at Gajwel has already been done. There are enough people who are fed up with the TRS government and the injustice it does to the women,” she argued. Interestingly, Vijaya’s candidature to Gajwel has been strongly opposed by BJPs local candidates. The issue has escalated to such levels that there were protests seen at BJP head office for the last two days. Their contention was to give party tickets to local candidates, not non-local.