Hyderabad: Even as the counting is on in the two MLC graduates constituencies elections, the political focus has shifted to yet another by-election whose schedule the Election Commission has announced.
While the Congress has taken a lead in declaring a candidate, with its party chief Sonia Gandhi naming former Minister K. Jana Reddy as its official candidate. Mr Jana Reddy has already started his campaign and covered the constituency and has the lead in both the campaign and a broad perception of the likely best bet.
The TRS, BJP, the Left and other parties are engaged in an exercise to identify their candidates.
The Left, TDP parties, Dalit Shakti Program (DSP) and Mahajana Socialist Party (MSP) will also contest in this by-election. Party leaders said that the CPI and CPM were planning to field a combined candidate. In Nalgonda districts, the Left parties are planning to field a combined candidate as they have been strong here in the past. The two parties will meet shortly to finalise their candidate. The TDP has already announced the name of Arun Kumar, hoping to harness the influence of Andhra settlers in Nagarjunasagar.
The Nagarjunasagar byelection is being taken seriously by the ruling TRS, which has faced a defeat at the hands of the BJP in Dubbaka and had a poor showing in the GHMC. Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhara Rao held a public meeting in Halia as part of this.
The government has announced a number of welfare and development programmes for the Nagarjunasagar constituency.
Meanwhile, Dalit Shakti Program activists have been campaigning extensively in every village for the past two months, targeting votes of Dalit, tribal and backward class communities. The DSP will announce its candidate in a couple of the days.
DSP held a public meeting on March 15 to celebrate Kanshi Ram’s birth anniversary. Thousands of people from the Dalits, tribal and backward communities attended the meeting. Social mobilization will therefore become an issue of high importance in the by-election.
The ruling party is therefore considering fielding a BC social candidate to garner votes of the numerically crucial section. But it is learned that senior TRS party leaders are assessing social equations, even though one cannot completely rule out Nomula Narsimhaiah’s son in the contest. The TRS candidate will be announced in the next two or three days, party sources said.
