TRS confronted with a Herculean task

Hyderabad: It would be a tough nut to crack for the ruling TRS in the Huzurabad constituency as its own leader who switched loyalties, Eatala Rajender, has consolidated his place in the segment by winning successive elections since 2004.

Though leaders, including ministers and MLAs, have been campaigning in the constituency for a month now, sources said, they were unable to have a grip and unsure of what is in store for the party. Yet they claim that the TRS has an upper hand over Eatala by 15 per cent vote share.

Eatala has been winning successive elections since 2004 on the TRS ticket. The Congress and the TDP had to be content with the second place. He won from the segment a record six times, including two by-polls after resigning for the cause of separate Telangana.

Eatala had won for the first time in Kamalapur in 2004 when he defeated Muddasani Damodar Reddy with a majority of 19,619 votes. In the 2008 by-poll in Kamalapur, he defeated Reddy again with a majority of 22,284 votes. In the 2009 elections Kamalapur was removed and Huzurabad was formed. He defeated his nearest rival Vakulabharanam Krishna Mohan Rao (Cong) by 14,968 votes.

There was another by-poll in 2010 after TRS MLAs resigned for separate Telangana. Eatala was victorious once again. He defeated Damodar Reddy (TDP) with a record majority of 79,227 votes. In 2014 general elections, he was the winner with a majority of 57,037 votes over Kethiri Sudharshan Reddy (Cong).

In 2018 Assembly elections, he defeated Padi Kaushik Reddy (Cong) by 43,719 votes. While Eatala secured 104,840 votes, Reddy polled 61,121 votes.

During the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Eatala could resist the Modi wave in the State because Huzurabad was among those constituencies in which he had polled more votes than the BJP winning candidate Bandi Sanjay among the other segments and also got a huge lead in his segment. The TRS leaders are sweating it out in Huzurabad for their candidate Gellu Srinivas Yadav.