KHAMMAM: The erstwhile Khammam district has become a centre of state politics in the run-up to the Assembly elections in the state. It has been quite visible for the last few months in many ways with the increased activities of the major political parties such as BJP, Congress and BRS and its top leaders touring and holding meetings in the district.
AICC former president Rahul Gandhi is scheduled to attend the Congress meeting to be held on July 2 in Khammam, which shares borders with Andhra Pradesh and also Chattisgarh.
The district has started to witness intense political activity with the BRS ‘Avirbhava Sabha’ held under the leadership of Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao, who invited the leaders of national and regional parties as chief guests a few months ago.
In the last two months, BJP and Congress state presidents Bandi Sanjay and Revanth Reddy respectively, participated in the party programmes for which huge crowds were mobilised in Khammam, where Union home minister Amit Shah’s meeting was also planned but was cancelled in the last minute and TDP chief N. Chandrababu Naidu also organised a party meeting a few months ago as an opposition party in Telangana.
In this background, the ruling BRS is more focused on strengthening the party and preparations for the elections in Khammam and made former minister Thummala Nageshwar Rao active in the party after expelling former MP Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy and former minister Jupalli Krishna Rao from the party on the charges of anti-party activities.
CLP leader Bhatti Vikramarka, who is also from Khammam, is considered one of the strong contenders for the CM post if the party comes to power in the state. His People’s March, which started in Pipri village of Adilabad district on March 16, will end in Khammam on July 2.
Of the five ST Assembly seats in the erstwhile Khammam district, three of them are general and two are reserved for SC. The BRS won only one seat out of the total 10 in the 2014 and 2018 elections while the remaining were won by the Congress, TDP, and YCP and independent candidates. Khammam was once the stronghold of Congress that won five seats in 2014 and 6 in 2018. However, of seven, five MLAs defected to the BRS after the 2018 elections from the district.
The district is usually influenced by the Left parties, which have their base here, where YSR Telangana party chief Y.S Sharmila also organised a public meeting.
Meanwhile, the detractors of Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy say the hype was created around his joining the Congress to project him as a ‘big’ leader who can influence many districts. But that is not the reality due to the changed political scenario in the district, they say.
Ponguleti’s close associate and former chairman of SC Corporation Chairman Pidamarthi Ravi observed that the former would show his strength at the Sunday meeting and emerge as a strong leader in the Congress after the general elections in the state.
