HYDERABAD: The ruling Congress on Tuesday accused the Opposition BRS of using emotional tactics to win the Jubilee Hills bypoll, alleging that its candidate Maganti Sunitha was being made to cry at campaign meetings to gain sympathy. The Congress leaders said the party would counter such “sympathy politics” with its development agenda.
Reacting to the emotional speech by Sunitha, the widow of Maganti Gopinath, whose death necessitated the bypoll, Transport Minister Ponnam Prabhakar said her tears were “scripted” and staged at the direction of BRS working president KT Rama Rao.
“We too sympathise with her personal loss, but tears don’t win elections,” Prabhakar said. “If you observe how she cries at meetings, it looks artificial. I was told that Rama Rao asked her to weep on every dais; it looks like a movie scene. Politics and sympathy are two different things.”
He raised the issue in several campaign meetings throughout the day.
AICC Telangana in-charge Meenakshi Natarajan, during her campaign, urged voters to give the Congress a chance in Jubilee Hills, saying, “Two wheels are needed for a motorcycle to move faster.”
Panchayat Raj and Rural Development Minister Dansari Anasuya (Seethakka) accused the BRS of “breaking the tradition” of unanimous election of the family of a deceased MLA, only to now seek votes on emotional grounds. “Our party is seeking votes on the basis of development — what we have done and what we will do in the next three years,” she said.