D.K. Aruna Has an Edge in Mahbubnagar

 Hyderabad: BJP vice-president D.K. Aruna is consolidating her position in the Mahbubnagar Lok Sabha seat, from where she has been testing her fortunes, is leaving the ruling Congress in jitters.

The seat has become a matter of prestige for Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy, son of the soil, as the outcome is expected to have a direct bearing on his popularity. The Chief Minister seems to have taken up the Herculean task of ensuring victory for party nominee and national secretary Dr Ch Vamshichand Reddy and began the electoral campaign from Narayanpet that falls in the constituency.

The Lok Sabha constituency has seven Assembly segments — Mahbubnagar, Narayanpet, Jadcherla, Devarakadra, Makthal, Shadnagar and the Chief Minister’s Kodangal. Theoretically Congress is well positioned having won all the seven segments in December 2023 Assembly polls.

However, as Revanth Reddy himself suspected in the Narayanpet public meeting on Monday, the fear of Aruna’s tacit understanding with BRS candidate and MP Manne Srinivas Reddy changing the fortunes is clearly haunting the Congress.

Significantly, the Chief Minister’s speech drew sharp reaction from his predecessor K. Chandrashekar Rao who saw in Revanth Reddy’s speech a clear sign of the Congress losing the polls badly.

Hailing from a political family that has a strong bond with people over the decades ,Aruna won the Gadwal Assembly seat twice with the Congress and served as minister between 2009 and 2014. After joining the BJP, she quickly rose in the ranks in the saffron party and at one stage tipped to be state party chief.

Aruna’s popularity was such that she and her father Ch Narsireddy got elected on Janata Party after they were denied Congress tickets. Her husband D.K. Bharat Simha Reddy served as MLA from the Telugu Desam.

“She (Aruna) turned the tables on the Congress while reacting to Revanth Reddy’s challenge to her to obtain permission as well as funding from the Centre for the Palamuru irrigation project in its original form that covered the seven Assembly segments. The present form of the Palamuru-Rangareddy is extended and expensive,” pointed out a Congress leader.

Aruna is confident that the strong wave in support of Prime Minister Narendra Modi would take her majority to three lakhs. “My win will be a severe blow to Revanth. The misleading and false campaign unleashed by Revanth Reddy will boomerang on him. He is frustrated because of the good response among the public for the BJP and is trying to mislead the voters with fake issues,” Arund told Deccan Chronicle.

Congress candidate Vamshichand Reddy is banking heavily on Revanth Reddy’s popularity. He has also been trying to woo the voters by promising to provide irrigation water for every acre of land in the district from Krishna river besides jobs for for youth.

Though the BRS has won the seat in the last Lok Sabha polls, the debacle in the Assembly polls, followed by the large-scale desertion of prominent leaders, and top leaders of the party landing in liquor and other scams, have completely demoralised the party cadre.

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Mahbubnagar was formerly known as Rukmammapeta and Palamuru.

It is said that the famous Golconda diamonds including famous the Kohinoor came from Mahbubnagar district.

The Krishna river flows through the district yet, many mandals in the Mahbubnagar Lok Sabha constituency often face acute shortage of irrigation water due to incompletion of mega irrigation projects like the Palamuru- Rangareddy lift irrigation scheme.

The district administration almost made a plea to the government seeking to declare several mandals as drought-hit.

BJP’s D.K. Aruna stood second in 2019 with Dr Vamshichand Reddy a distant third position in 2019; the seat was won by the BRS’s Manne Srinivas Reddy.