Visakhapatnam: Contestants focus on luring caste leaders

Visakhapatnam: A new trend of election campaigning is meeting different caste groups secretly. Gone are those days when the MLAs and MPs are in public service for five years. Now it’s once in a five-year game. More than campaigning, the candidates are showing interest in meeting the people caste wise to save efforts and time.

Most of the MLA candidates in Visakhapatnam district are arranging caste meetings every day, covering one caste group each day. It has been learnt that the candidates are buying the top leaders of castes, to influence the voters. The candidates have been promising people that they will work for their community.

Many of the leaders were seen booking banquet halls in hotels and arranging a meeting with a group of people, belonging to the same caste. However, this has been kept confidential and the candidates have been ta-king measures to ensure that this is not leaking out as the opponents are also eyeing their activity.

A senior politician said: “We are campaigning in the wards, but the impact of meeting a group of people, who can influence many votes, will be high. Once we have a meeting with people, we have to keep their details confidential. If the opponent leaders know about it, they will also try to lure them. However, we al-so came to know that some of the groups are meeting all the candidates to decide which candidate they can trust.”

The candidates are spending lakhs of rupees to lure top leaders of their community to show that the said community is on their side. Though it is being an easy job for those contesting as an ex-MLA or a new candidate to make the people trust, the sitting MLAs have been facing a tough time as they are facing lots of questions from the community groups. Some of the communities have directly said that the candidate did nothing for the uplift of their community in his five-year tenure.