Telugu Desam Party cadre resist Galla campaign

Chandragiri: Local TD leaders and cadres of Chandragiri constituency are not at all happy about campaigning for their traditional enemy, Ms Galla Aruna Kumari, who recently switched from the Congress to the Telugu Desam.

Her first task will be to win the confidence of local party leaders even before she can approach the voters. Though the top TD leadership has forgotten the decades long political enmity between Ms Aruna and the party in Chandragiri, local TD workers and cadres were not unable to digest her inclusion into the party. Memories of the miseries meted out to the local TD leaders and cadres by the followers of Ms Aruna continues to haunt them, said a local TD leader.

The TD leaders say that during the last decade, when Ms Aruna was a Cabinet minister, several cases were framed against them for raising their voice against her.

The leaders, who were lately feeling upbeat about the party gaining lost ground across the state, are now feeling deceived by the TD’s leadership for having accommodated Ms Aruna.

While Ms Galla Aruna has started her election campaign in Chandragiri constituency, it is more of her original followers rather than the local TD leaders who are taking part. While the TD leadership assumes that the local leaders will eventually fall in line once Ms Aruna is fielded from the Chandragiri constituency, the situation on the ground seems to be very different.