HYDERABAD: “Don’t fall for religious politics,” read one of the posters at the residence of Anjan Kumar Yadav, Congress party’s candidate from the Secunderabad parliamentary constituency.
While another poster on the next wall showed Yadav dressed in a Muslim cap and a sherwani. Just a glance at his residence in Adarsh Nagar filled with election campaign materials and scores of supporters, was enough to showcase the fever of upcoming Lok Sabha Elections.
While speaking to Express, he claimed that in his 10 years in power he got a lot of development done and which is why he is confident that the people will choose him again.
In 2004, Yadav had won the general elections from the Secunderabad constituency by defeating the then incumbent MP, former Union Minister and veteran BC leader, Bandaru Dattatreya of the Bharatiya Janata Party. He had then remained in power for two consecutive terms -- 2004 - 2009 and 2009 - 2014.
However, after the formation of a separate Telangana, during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Dattatreya rose to power and defeated the then incumbent MP Yadav. In 2019, Yadav would be facing the three-time MLA, G Kishan Reddy of the saffron party, who has been chosen as the party’s candidate for the upcoming general elections from Secunderabad instead of Dattatreya.
It may be noted that Dattatreya was elected to the Lok Sabha from Secunderabad as the only BJP MP from Telangana. And was later dropped by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his 2017 Cabinet reshuffle, leaving no representation from the Telugu state in the Cabinet.
Also in the fray is the TRS candidate, Talasani Sai Kiran, son of Sanath Nagar MLA and Animal Husbandry minister, Talasani Srinivas Yadav.
Anjan Kumar Yadav who did his BA from Dharmavanth College in the Old City, accused the TRS and BJP of winning elections with malpractice.
“Woh gun or daulat ke badle election ladhna chahte, hum awaam ka dil jeet kar vote mang rahe hai (They want to fight the election with guns and money, while we want to win hearts with our work and then ask for votes,” said Anjan with a laugh.
Dismissing any electoral threats by the TRS party’s candidate, he said that this election is just going to be a fight between BJP and Congress.
He also refers his constituency as ‘mini-India’ since Secunderabad has a sizable population of people from all religions, speaking different languages.
Accusing the TRS of stealing the credit of Telangana State’s formation from the Congress, he said, “The Congress party is the most secular party. Only Congress will work for people irrespective of their caste and creed, which is why people from different communities are with us.”