What’s at stake in Telangana bypoll
A victory for the TRS in the Dubbaka Assembly by-election in Telangana on November 3 appears to be a certainty. This predominantly BC Assembly segment has remained the ruling party’s pocket borough for a long time. It has now nominated S Sujatha, the widow of late MLA Ramalinga Reddy who passed away in August, and deployed its expert in poll management, Finance Minister T Harish Rao.
What is going in favour of the TRS is the changing landscape of north Telangana into a verdant area thanks to the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme, which has fetched the party the support of farmers. For the Congress and the BJP, this battle is a litmus test as it would decide the degree of their relevance in the state. Both parties have mobilised all their men and machinery to make a difference as they have remained a distant second and third in most of the polls till now.
The new Congress in-charge of Telangana, Manickam Tagore, is keeping a close watch on campaigning and has ordered each and every capable leader, starting with the PCC president, to stay put in the Assembly segment till the election is over, the first-ever move of its kind by the party. But what might hurt the Congress is its inability to groom a candidate for the bypoll; it has fielded Ch Srinivasa Reddy, who defected from the TRS at the last minute.
The BJP too is an underdog and its candidate M Raghunandan Rao has lost to the TRS in the last three elections. The track record of the TRS in wresting Huzurnagar, Palair and Narayankhed Assembly seats from its arch-rival Congress in earlier bypolls speaks volumes of the ruling party’s prowess in such elections.
Yet, while victory in its stronghold Dubbaka seems likely, this will not serve as a bellwether for the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) elections due in the next couple of months as the latter is a different ball game. Still, a win would continue to enhance the feel-good factor in favour of the TRS, something that has already helped the CM’s daughter K Kavitha bag an MLC seat in neighbouring Nizamabad with a whopping majority.