HYDERABAD: While the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) have completed their selection process for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections and announced candidates for all the 17 seats in the state, the Congress is lagging far behind.
Both the BJP and BRS have gotten off the blocks swiftly and have already shifted their focus towards campaigning, with prominent leaders strategising at the grassroots level to secure victory for their respective parties.
The BJP has announced all its candidates and launched an aggressive campaign, including road shows and public meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Similarly, the BRS launched its campaign with a public meeting in Karimnagar, with the party supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao set to participate in road shows. On Monday, the BRS too announced all its candidates.
However, the Congress has only announced nine Lok Sabha candidates so far, leaving eight seats pending. This probably has to do with the fact that there is intense competition for the tickets for the Khammam, Bhongir, Karimnagar, Nizamabad, Adilabad, Medak, Warangal and Hyderabad Lok Sabha seats.
For example, the Congress has to make a decision whether to wait for sitting MP Soyam Bapu Rao who was denied the BJP ticket to join its fold or to announce Atram Suguna, who recently joined its fold, as its candidate. The situation in Medak is similar, where Neelam Madhu is expecting the ticket but Chagalla Narendra Nath is making overtures to the party to admit him in its fold and give him the ticket.
Similarly, discussions are going on regarding the most suitable candidates — sitting MP Pasunoori Dayakar who joined the Congress from the BRS or senior leader Dommati Sambaiah for the Warangal ticket and a member of the Masqati family for the Hyderabad ticket.
Sources reveal that the Congress Central Election Committee is slated to meet on March 27 to finalise the remaining eight candidates.
The front-runners for these constituencies include Chamala Kiran Reddy for Bhongir, Ponguleti Prasada Reddy for Khammam, and a choice between Neelam Madhu and Narendra Nath for Medak. T Jeevan Reddy for Nizamabad, Atram Suguna and Soyam Bapu Rao for Adilabad, Praveen Reddy for Karimnagar, Pasunoori Dayakar from Warangal and a member of the Masqati family for Hyderabad.
Once the candidate selection process concludes, the party plans to intensify its campaign, implementing a three-layer coordination strategy at the grassroots level, akin to the successful model implemented in Malkajgiri during the 2019 elections.
Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge and former AICC president Rahul Gandhi are expected to participate in a massive public meeting in the first week of April to be held on the outskirts of Hyderabad.
