Khammam: The Palair assembly segment is turning out to be a hot seat for the 2023 elections. Many stalwarts are showing their interest to contest from there.
Former minister Tummala, who lost the election in 2018 at the hands of Congress candidate K Upender Reddy, is visiting the villages in Palair segment and meeting his followers to garner support. Reddy expressed his desire to re-enter the fray again from Palair. Tummala believes he was defeated in the last elections due to non-cooperation of a few TRS leaders.
“I did a lot of things for Palair and every village now has road connectivity. The Bhakta Ramadasu irrigation project was made a reality during my term,” he claimed.
The former minister is considering Palair as a safe seat for him and feels the election cost will be less compared to high-profile Khammam. But, he was silent on how he would get the BRS ticket when the sitting MLA in Palair had joined the ruling party and changed the political equations there.
CPI-M state secretary Tammineni Veerbhadram, who was MLA from Khammam during 2004 - 2009, also eyes Palair. He hopes the seat would be given to the CPIM by the BRS in an alliance between the left parties and the ruling party.
He laid the foundation stone to build a house in his native village Teldarpalli in Khammam rural mandal that comes under the Palair assembly segment. It, he feels, is up to the TRS to give another slot to the present MLA of Palair.
Another aspirant is BJP’s Kondapalli Sridhar Reddy, the Bharatiya Kisan Morcha’s state president. Expectations are that the BJP would place its candidates in all the 119 assembly segments in Telangana. Sridhar Reddy may get the ticket if any senior leader from BRS or Congress from this segment has not joined the BJP before the elections.
YSRTP state president YS Sharmila said that she would contest from Palair. She laid the foundation to build her residential home-cum-YSRTP office at Karunagiri in this segment.
Sitting MLA of Palair, K Upender Reddy, dismissed the statements of the CPI-M and former minister Tummala Nageswara Rao on Palair. “I will be the BRS candidate from Palair and there is no alternative to me,” he asserted confidently.
