HYDERABAD: In an interesting development, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), which fought the 2018 Assembly elections in alliance with the Congress, is pitting Chava Kiranmayi against N Padmavathi, the nominee of the grand old party in the byelection to the Huzurnagar Assembly seat.
The Grand Alliance led by the TDP and the Congress fought the 2018 Assembly elections, but both parties bit dust at the hands of the TRS, which steam-rolled its way to win 88 of the 119 seats.
The TDP, which won only two seats, could not recover from the shock since then, and opted out of the Lok Sabha elections in May, for the first time since its inception in 1982.
The TDP, which seems to have gained a second wind by the time the byelection for Huzurnagar arrived, has decided to try its luck. The party’s nominee, Kiranmayi, will take on N Padmavathi, wife of PCC president N Uttam Kumar Reddy. The party’s Telangana president, L Ramana, handed her the B form to file her nomination on Monday, the deadline to file papers.
Kiranmayi, a kamma, is expected to find traction among a considerable number of Andhras who have settled in Huzurnagar constituency. She was in the news recently when TDP activists picked up an argument with her at a party parliamentary constituency-level meeting at Nalgonda, saying she was contemplating joining the BJP. She denied the allegations.
The TDP believes its cadre are still intact in Huzurnagar, and Kiranmayi would be able to reap a good number of votes in the election so the party stays afloat in Telangana. “I have visited the constituency. The people have faith in the TDP. They requested us to field a candidate,” party leader R Chandrasekhar Reddy said. Meanwhile, the CPI, another Grand Alliance partner, appears to be in a mood to support the TRS party.
When TRS leaders K Keshava Rao, B Vinod and Nama Nageswara Rao called on party State secretary Chada Venkata Reddy, he is understood to have shown an interest in supporting TRS nominee S Saidi Reddy.