As Jana Reddy leads campaign in Nagarjunsagar, TRS, BJP yet to declare candidates

Hyderabad: The ruling TRS and opposition BJP are yet to finalise their candidates for the upcoming Nagarjunasagar Assembly bypoll, even as the Election Commission has issued the election notification on Tuesday. Congress is the only major party to announce its candidate, senior leader K. Jana Reddy, for the bypoll.

However, the TRS has stepped up campaigning by deputing a dozen MLAs to the constituency to retain a sitting seat. The legislators have started covering each village. Ministers will join the campaigning after the Assembly session ends on March 26. The BJP on the other hand is waiting for TRS to announce its candidate first.

Congress candidate Jana Reddy has already taken up hectic campaigning in the constituency for the past one month.

TRS chief and Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao has kept the candidate selection pending even after obtaining several survey reports on who should be the candidate.

TRS official sources say the delay is because of pressure on the party leadership from the deceased Nagarjunasagar MLA Nomula Narasimhaiah’s followers to field a family member, in this case his son Nomula Bhagath, as was done in the case of Dubbak, where the widow of the deceased MLA was fielded.

However, local TRS leaders are arguing that Nomula Bhagath is a “non local” and only a local candidate should be given a ticket this time. This has eventually led to a war between local and non-local factions in Nagarjunasgar, delaying the process of finalisation of the candidate.

The number of aspirants for TRS ticket has been increasing day after day with the delay, and has now peaked after the party won both the graduate MLC seats.

The BJP, on the other hand, is waiting for the TRS to announce its candidate first, with a hope that “strong” aspirants of TRS, who fail to get a ticket, may switch to the BJP. This was forced on the BJP because it lacks a strong local candidate in Nagarjunasagar, unlike in Dubbak.