TRS to woo non-Dalits in Huzurabad

HYDERABAD: After going all out to woo Schedules Caste voters in Huzurabad with Dalit Bandhu, the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) leadership is on a mission to win over non-Dalits in the constituency.

Out of a total of 2.36 lakh voters in the constituency, non-Dalits comprise 1.80 lakh of whom around 1.30 lakh hail from Backward Classes. The TRS leadership is trying to attract non-Dalits with welfare schemes and is promising to bring ‘BC Bandhu’ in future.

TRS sources said ministers and party MLAs from OC categories (Reddys, Brahmins, Velama communities etc) and BCs (Munnuru Kapu, Padmashali, Gowda, Mudiraj, Yadavs, Rajaka communities etc)  were being roped in to hold caste-wise meetings with people seeking their support for the TRS.

BC ministers Gangula Kamalakar, V. Srinivas Goud, Talasani Srinivas Yadav, Reddy ministers G. Jagadish Reddy, A. Indrakaran Reddy, S. Niranjan Reddy, V. Prashanth Reddy and Ch Malla Reddy have been asked to hold meetings with respective communities as part of campaigning.

Ministers from ST and Minority categories, Satyavathi Rathod and Mohd Mahmood Ali, will hold meetings with their communities, which account for 4,220 and 5,100 voters respectively.

While the TRS is confident of total support from Dalits on the back of Dalit Bandhu, it is wary of Opposition parties trying to polarise non-Dalits against the TRS with a campaign that it did not extend Dalit Bandhu-type benefit to other castes. There are 46,700 Dalit voters in the constituency of whom Madigas are 35,600 and Malas 11,100.

There are close to 21,000 Dalit families spread over five mandals in the constituency. The party leadership is confident of Dalits voting en masse in favour of the TRS as all these families were covered under Dalit Bandhu for whom the government recently transferred Rs 2,000 crore into their bank accounts at Rs10 lakh each. With this, the TRS is now focused on other castes who comprise a major chunk of voters in the constituency. Among the OCs, the Reddy voters are a majority at 22,600 while Brahmins, Velamas and others constitute 12,150 voters.

The TRS has roped in party's Reddy leaders to lure them into its fold. The ministers recently laid foundation for the construction of Reddy community halls in the constituencies for which ministers and party MLAs from Reddy community were invited. Even Legislative Assembly speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy participated in one such event on September 25 and addressed a public meeting in which he praised the TRS government's welfare schemes inviting the wrath of Opposition parties who questioned how the Speaker could take part in political activities. However, Pocharam defended himself saying he came there as a "Reddy" and not as the Speaker.