HYDERABAD: With the political heat rising ahead of the Huzurabad byelection, the Congress party has begun fine-tuning the modalities of its strategy, clearing hurdles and redundancies vis-a-vis the candidate of the party, before kick-starting a high-decibel campaign.
The party's primary objective is to minimise the influence that P Kaushik Reddy, who had recently defected to the TRS, wields over the constituency. In the previous Assembly elections, he had received 61,121 votes, while Eatala Rajender, who had contested for the TRS, had got over 1 lakh votes.
Former MP Ponnam Prabhakar, who is popular among the Youth Congress leaders, has already begun making arrangements for the grand entry of the party's star campaigners. The TPCC is also trying to convince the party's local leaders like V Linga Reddy, who had filed a nomination, to withdraw the same.
Besides Linga Reddy, the party leaders also spoke to other candidates and claimed to have convinced them to withdraw their nominations. "After the rejection of nominations, about 3-4 of partymen still remained in the fray. We held talks with Linga Reddy and others. Most of them have assured to withdraw. Apart from this, we have also asked 15 revenue field assistants, who had filed nominations, to withdraw," said PCC working president, B Mahesh Kumar Goud, while speaking to The New Indian Express.
Huzurabad, which is considered a constituency with a complex set of caste equations, had always had internal rivalries. Even as Venkat Balmoor, the party's candidate for the bypoll, is facing stiff opposition from local leader, the TPCC is confident of its traditional votebank.