HYDERABAD: Revenge is a dish best served hot, not cold. Former minister Eatala Rajender exacted sweet revenge on his former boss and Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Tuesday, for dismissing him from the Cabinet and ordering an inquiry into his “purchase” of assigned lands about five months ago. He trounced TRS nominee Gellu Srinivas in the byelection to the Huzurabad Assembly seat with a majority of 23,855 votes, proving that no one could dislodge him on his home turf.
From 8 am on Tuesday, when the counting of votes began, there was no looking back for Rajender. Barring two of the 22 rounds of counting, the BJP leader was ahead of his TRS rival. In the eighth round, the TRS secured 4,248 votes, BJP 4,086 votes and Congress 89 votes. The pink party also led the eleventh round with 4,326 votes. The BJP and Congress secured 3,941 and 104 votes each in that round.
It was Rajender’s day all the way. Elated on receiving the certificate of victory, he said, “This is a historic verdict. It is a slap for KCR. It is a condemnation of the gross abuse of authority, distribution of money, liquor and a host of other model code violations.”
Though Rajender fought the election donning saffron robes with Srinivas, the battle was between him and KCR and not the parties or their ideologies. The people of the constituency felt that they were wronged when their leader Rajender, who had won six elections and done immense work for them, was dismissed unceremoniously from the Cabinet. After he fell from grace, Rajender went to his constituency and explained to them how he had been humiliated. They took the insult personally and supported him in his battle.
Though there was a surge in support for him, it was not easy for Rajender to pull off the victory. He had to earn every vote on account of the towering personality of KCR. Rajender had to prove that he was not just punching above his weight and that he was indeed a match for the TRS supremo. Without hesitation, the Telangana movement leader took a leap of faith. He went straight to the people’s court after quitting his Assembly membership. He was not afraid of joining the ranks of the BJP though it meant a migration from the extreme left to the far right.
For the Huzurabad electorate, Rajender, being in the battlefield on BJP ticket, presented an unusual dimension. Until now, KCR and he were together — one did not know whom they had supported when they voted for the car symbol. But the TRS and Rajender faced each other in the arena and the voters chose the lanky former minister. His TRS opponent Gellu Srinivas did not measure up to him as he has been in the bullring of politics for quite a long time and knew all the tricks of the trade.
Incidentally, Rajender’s victory came as the icing on the cake for the BJP as it had already pocketed Dubbaka from the TRS in a recent byelection. The BJP leaders are now experiencing the first stirring of hope that they can challenge KCR in the 2023 Assembly elections. Party State president Bandi Sanjay Kumar is on cloud nine and is screaming at the top of his voice that the march of the BJP juggernaut is unstoppable.
“We are going to win the next Assembly elections hands down,” he asserted, as though capturing power in the State is a fait accompli.The involuntary victim in the high-stakes game was Congress nominee Balmoor Venkat, who could not even retain his security deposit. The way the Congress, which was once in power in the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh, went down as though pole-axed is raising doubts of whether it had lent a helping hand to the BJP, considering their common enemy is KCR. The TRS leaders have been alleging that the both the Congress and the BJP had a covert pact and did a ‘Nizamabad’ in Huzurabad.
Though no one could vouch for the tacit understanding, it is quite likely that the significant number of votes in the constituency did not go the TRS way, though Padi Kaushik Reddy, who polled more than 60,000 votes in the previous Assembly election on a Congress ticket, was lured into the TRS much ahead of the byelection. As Rajender’s tally of votes climbed up steadily, the TRS has surmised that Congress votes had gone to the BJP as part of a deal. The BJP polled only 1,683 votes in 2018 elections, but now the saffron party has cornered more than 1.06 lakh votes.
For the TRS, this is a pyrrhic defeat. According to party grapevine, it had spent about Rs 150 crore on voters. Apart from this, the TRS had invested Rs 1,000 crore in the constituency in expectation of huge electoral returns. KCR has pulled out Dalit Bandhu from his hat to reap SC votes, but the scheme did not cut ice with them though they are more than 40,000 in number. The TRS had delivered several welfare schemes, but to no avail.
TRS troubleshooter and Finance Minister T Harish Rao had taken the byelection as a matter of prestige and had worked day and night to secure a win. Other ministers from the district — Gangula Kamalakar and Koppula Easwar — did their best, but victory slipped away from their hands like the proverbial eel. A dejected Harish Rao said after losing the battle: “One loss will not turn the TRS topsy-turvy.”
Victory comes as the icing on cake for BJP
Eatala Rajender’s victory came as the icing on the cake for the BJP as it had already pocketed Dubbaka Assembly seat from the ruling TRS party in a recent byelection. The BJP leaders are now experiencing the first stirring of hope that they can challenge K Chandrasekhar Rao in the 2023 Assembly elections