Hyderabad: Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s daughter K. Kavitha who had distanced herself from active politics after her defeat in the Lok Sabha elections, has decided to return to duty in view of the ensuing municipal polls.
Ms Kavitha has kept away from party activities and public appearances since her defeat in the Lok Sabha elections. She has appeared in public on only two occasions, one of them being the Mahankali Bonalu festival. Ms Kavitha, who had won Nizamabad seat in the 2014 parliamentary elections, defeating the Congress’s Madhu Yashki Goud, was defeated in the 2019 elections by the BJP candidate Arvind Dha-rmapuri, son of D Srin-ivas, a senior politician and Rajya Sabha member of the TRS.
Sources in the TRS disclosed that the party’s top leadership believes that Ms Kavitha should be at the forefront of the elections in Nizamabad, where there is an internal fight in the BJP between Arvind Dharmapuri and some other party leaders, and also because turmeric farmers, a powerful vote bank, are disillusioned with sitting MP Arvind Dharmapuri who has failed to fulfil his promise of setting up the Turmeric Board at Nizamabad within a month of his victory.
Sources said many farmers are approaching the TRS and confidantes of Ms Kavitha to urge that she take an active role in district politics. Elections are to be held to the Nizamabad Municipal Corporation, Korutla, Armoor, Metpally, Jagtial and the newly constituted Raikal and Bhimgal municipalities, which are in the Nizamabad Lok Sabha constituency. Sources in the TRS said that the silence of Ms Kavitha would demoralise the party cadre and in view of the incident of Bodhan MLA Shakeel meeting with Mr Dharmapuri in Delhi, it would be better for the party if she is active in politics again to boost the morale of the cadres in view of the civic polls. Sources pointed out that the BJP is so confident of grabbing the Nizamabad Municipal Corporation, that it is essential to counter this by fielding her. Sources in the TRS revealed that the party is trying to take advantage of the widening gap between Mr Dharmapuri and former BJP MLA Yandla Lakshminarayana.
Sources said that the TRS is also planning to get BJP leaders in the district to defect through Ms Kavitha and show that the party has always had an edge over the BJP in the district and the sitting MP cannot succeed in his efforts to poach TRS district leaders.
