Hyderabad: In a seeming redux of the 2019 elections for the Lok Sabha seat in Chevella Parliamentary constituency, the tables have turned with the principal candidates contesting from different parties from the last time, and the ground situation clearly indicates a strong edge for BJP candidate Konda Vishweshwar Reddy (KVR) over G. Ranjith Reddy of the Congress.
The TRS won the seat in both the previous LS elections – 2014 and 2019. But neither of the party’s winning candidates – Konda Vishweshwar Reddy (2014) or G. Ranjith Reddy (2019) – are in the party any longer.
The BRS is now considered all but irrelevant ahead of the current elections not just in Chevella but across the 17 seats of Telangana state. The pink party has now fielded a maverick and non-serious candidate, Kasani Gnaneshwar Mudiraj, who was previously the president of the Telangana TD unit and had founded the Mana Party years ago.
After Vishweshwar Reddy joined the BJP, he has steadfastly worked in a constituency in which the party has been weak. The KVR campaign started early and built strong on-ground connections across seven constituencies, including two reserved.
In the Assembly elections last year, the Congress won three and the BRS managed to win four. The buoyancy and optimism for the BJP come from past turnarounds. The saffron party won only eight Assembly seats and is expecting another major turnaround in fortune, like the last time when it won only one seat in the 2018 Assembly polls but within a few months went on to bag four Lok Sabha seats.
The KVR campaign is focusing on several positive factors, including the Narendra Modi and Ram temple factors, his lineage (his grandfather K.V. Ranga Reddy was a freedom fighter, after whom the Ranga Reddy district is named), his positive track record as MP and his constant accessibility to people even after he lost the elections.
In contrast, Ranjith Reddy, aware of the steep anti-incumbency against him and his BRS, jumped ship to avert a defeat. There are several corruption charges against him, including the Rs 1,000 crore poultry fodder subsidy scam, and charges of a real estate project in which his firm illegally demolished a sacred and historic Lord Hanuman temple.
Ranjith Reddy faces strong opposition from the local Congress cadre, especially in Vikarabad (SC) Assembly seat and Tandur, besides Pargi. Several local Congress leaders and cadre allege that Ranjith Reddy had created several troubles during the last five years, including foisting false cases, and they would not wish to work for him.
The former supporters of Ranjith Reddy, who are still in the BRS, including Sabitha Indra Reddy (Maheswaram) and T. Prakash Goud (Rajendranagar), have strongly resolved to work to defeat the man who they allege left the BRS when it was in trouble after having benefited from it.
Ranjith Reddy, who made his political and electoral debut in the 2019 elections, won with a narrow margin polling 5,28,148 votes, against Konda Vishweshwar Reddy who secured 5,13,831 votes. Ranjith Reddy, who faced a strong anti-local sentiment working against him, managed it with the help of strong BRS support, which is now working against him.
While the national mood might be in favour of the BJP, the local political winds are strongly in favour of the Congress across almost all seats, after a spectacular win in the 2023 Assembly elections under the leadership of Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy further consolidated the goodwill by delivering on several of their welfare schemes, but a bad candidate might lose Congress a seat in Chevella.
