HYDERABAD: The state’s political atmospwhere, already heated up by the fireworks between the ruling and opposition parties over the chief minister’s decision to form farmers’ coordination committees on nomination basis in all villages, has further charged up by speculation over TRS opting for a bypoll.Though the ruling party leadership is keeping its cards close to its chest on preferring a bypoll for the Nalgonda Lok Sabha seat, being held by Gutta Sukhender Reddy who crossed over to the TRS after winning the 2014 election on Congress ticket, the talk in the pink party circles is that chief minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, who has been into the habit of using byelection as a tool to boost the morale of his party cadres right from Telangana movement, is once again considering the same trick and will make Reddy resign as MP to force a bypoll in that constituency.
Since Rao is said to be considering Reddy for the head of the proposed State level Farmer’s Coordination Committee (Rashtriya Rythu Samanvaya Samithi), which will be a Cabinet-rank post, the Nalgonda MP will have to resign in that event. Though Nalgonda bypoll is still a speculation, opposition parties have begun throwing down the gauntlet to the chief minister, asking him to order bypolls in all the Lok Sabha and Assembly constituencies, which are being represented by the “turncoats” who crossed over to the ruling party after winning the 2014 elections on behalf of other parties.
“We have been hearing that TRS leadership might go in for byelection for the Nalgonda LS seat to test its popularity. We challenge KCR to go ahead with his plan and ask Sukhender Reddy to quit to facilitate bypoll in Nalgonda,” Congress leaders- V Hanumantha Rao, Mallu Ravi and Ponguleti Sudhakar Reddy said here on Tuesday.
Why is KCR keen on Nalgonda seat?
According to TRS sources, as the Assembly segments of TPCC chief N Uttam Kumar Reddy (Huzurnagar) and his wife Padmavati Reddy (Kodad), leader of the opposition K Jana Reddy (Nagarjuna Sagar) and party leader Komatireddy Venkat Reddy (Nalgonda) fall in the Nalgonda LS constituency, TRS leadership is keen on winning the bypoll there to snub the Congress.