NIZAMABAD: The long wait is finally over for former Nizamabad MP and Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s daughter K Kavitha. The Election Commission has announced October 9 as the date of polling for the by-election for the post of MLC from Nizamabad Local Authorities Constituency, which was postponed thrice previously. After Kavitha was humbled in the Lok Sabha election from Nizamabad constituency in 2019 by her arch-rival D Arvind, she had retreated into a shell, hardly making any public appearances, except doing social service.
Now that the byelection date has been announced, her sabbatical is over, since winning a by-election, for her, is as easy as having a morning cup of tea, considering the party has an unassailable number of voters in its kitty. Of the total 824 voters, the TRS has 598, leaving the Congress with 140 and the saffron party with 84. The by-election has been necessitated after incumbent R Bhupathi Reddy was disqualified in 2019 after he defected to Congress from TRS ahead of the Assembly elections in 2018.
In fact, on March 12 this year, the Election Commission had issued notification for the byelection, fixing the polling date on April 7. But the Commission had to defer the polls thrice on account of the prevailing pandemic situation. Now that the unlock process is in progress, the fresh date for the polls has been announced.
The other two contestants are Subhash Reddy (Congress) and P Laxminarayna (BJP). The term of the incumbent will be till April 1, 2022. Though Bupathi Reddy contested his disqualification in the High Court and the Supreme Court, he could not get a favorable judgment as to both the Courts upheld the Legislative Council Chairman’s action of disqualifying him.
Though the TRS knows that winning the seat is a child’s play, yet it wants to demolish the Opposition so that there would be no threat to the party in the future from any quarter. Keeping this in mind, the TRS has started luring several BJP and Congress voters into its camp. Though the Covid-19 pandemic was prevailing, there were allegations that the TRS had organized a voters’ camp at a private function hall apart from offering inducements to the voters of other parties to join their ranks.
As the election is a fait accompli now for the TRS, Kavitha would be able to take an active role in the State politics as the party slowly prepares to consolidate its gains and neutralize any anti-incumbency factor that might prove to be a drag on it in the next Assembly elections. Also, Kavitha would be quite useful to her party because she has an appeal among the people, particularly women, and recently she became the only south Indian woman politician to have 10 lakh followers on Twitter.
TRS holds 598 votes
Of the total 824 voters, the pink party has 598, leaving the grand-old Congress party with 140 and BJP with 84. The electoral college for the constituency comprises MPTCs (537), ZPTCs (49), corporators and councilors (226), and ex-officio members (12)