Nagarjunasagar bypoll: Massive TRS campaign shows clear edge for TRS

Hyderabad: The month-long high-decibel campaign by political parties for the Nagarjunansagar Assembly bypoll ended on Thursday.

TRS leaders claimed that the huge size of Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao’s public meeting at Halia on Wednesday boosted the chances of the TRS in the by-poll. The vigorous campaigning by ministers, TRS MLAs, MLCs, MPs and other leaders for the past one month has given the TRS a clear edge over its rivals, they claimed. The TRS is banking on the votes of the thousands of beneficiaries of the state government's welfare schemes in the constituency, to retain the seat with a huge majority.

All the parties have chalked out their booth management strategies for the polling on April 17. The main focus for TRS and other parties is on ensuring a higher turnout of voters. The TRS has appointed cadres to distribute voter slips door-to-door, based on the list of beneficiaries of the TRS  welfare schemes.

The details of beneficiaries of welfare schemes like Rythu Bandhu, Rythu Bima, Aasara pensions, free sheep distribution, ration cards, Ayogyasri, fee reimbursement, scholarships, gurukul educational institutions etc were provided to cadres, whose duty is to seek votes in return for the TRS candidate, by personally meeting them and explaining matters.

An in-charge has been appointed for every 25 voters, whose duty is to ensure that voters reached polling booth and cast their vote. The TRS, the Congress and the BJP have also picked up persons from dominant castes in every village, whose task is mobilize voters from each of these communities to the booths.

As the Nagarjunasagar constituency is dominated by BCs, there was a great demand for appointing BC leaders as in-charges for booth-level management. While there a total of 2,19,745 voters in the constituency, the BC voters comprise 1,03,886, forming almost half of the total voters.

After BCs, the ST voters constitute the largest chunk, at 35,706, followed by SCs 33,821, OCs 32,606, minorities 6,687 and others 7,039. As Yadav vote bank is strong and the highest in the constituency at 36,646 voters, all the parties are laying special focus to lure this community with the help of local Yadav leaders.

All the parties are relying heavily on the distribution of cash and liquor through caste leaders and local leaders in respective booths to lure voters in the final two days before polling on April 17.