With polls to 9 MLC seats inevitable, TRS keeps its flock together

Hyderabad: With three TRS MLC candidates, including Kalvakuntla Kavitha, Patnam Mahender Reddy and Shambhipur Raju set to enter Council for the second time and the election being inevitable for the other nine seats, TRS is getting ready for camp politics.

Kavitha is slated to win from Nizamabad LAC as the nomination of independent candidate K Srinivas was rejected on the grounds that it was not in proper format and also the information provided in the affidavit was said to be incorrect. Neither the BJP nor the Congress party fielded any candidate from the Nizamabad LAC paving the way for Kavitha to enter Council for the second time. Similarly, there are no opponents for Patnam Mahender Reddy and Shambhipur Raju from Rangareddy district ULBs.

The nomination of single independent candidate Ch Chandra Shekar was rejected as it was not in a proper format. As nine constituencies will have to face the polls, TRS is making all-out efforts to see that their flock does not get disturbed. During the previous election in 2019, the ruling party had brought over 2,500 public representatives to the city and they were kept at different places. Sources said that some of the public representatives were taken to Kerala and Karnataka to ensure that there was no horse trading. The public representatives were kept in the camp for a fortnight and according to sources, Rs 1 lakh was spent on each public representative per day for a period of 15 days. The party had to take precautionary steps because even after having a majority, the TRS lost the seat in Nalgonda in 2015 where Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy of Congress party was the winner, said a TRS leader.

There are more independent candidates this time and at a few places the nominations were also filed by the Congress party leaders.

The TRS has a majority of ZPTCs, MPTCs, Councillors/corporators in local bodies. Since Congress despite not having strength had fielded their candidates and hence the TRS wanted to ensure that there was no horse trading.

In Adilabad, G Narayan Reddy has filed nominations on behalf of Congress and there were 22 independent candidates in the fray. Similarly, in Warangal there were two candidates who filed nominations on behalf of Congress and 12 nominations were from Independents. In Nalgonda, there were a dozen independents in the fray. In Medak and Khammam along with Congress there were two independents respectively. In Karimnagar, 19 independents filed nominations for the two seats while there are eight candidates in Mahbubnagar for two seats.