Eying municipal polls, TRS picks Warangal BC leader

Warangal: Ahead of elections to the Greater Warangal Municipal Corporation (GWMC), the ruling TRS comes up trumps by bestowing MLC post to a backward class leader belonging to the city.

The TRS, which recently had a setback by losing Dubbaka by-poll to the BJP, appears to be leaving no stone unturned to retain GWMC, which goes to polls in the first quarter of 2021. The State Cabinet headed by Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, on Friday has finalised names for the three vacancies under Governor's quota.

The TRS government chose former Minister Baswaraju Saraiah, who has been waiting in the wings quite for some time. It has been a long wait for him.

The 62-year-old Saraiah, who rose to the ranks of Minister from the position of corporator in municipality, had seen many ups and downs in his four-decade political care.

Back to back defeats in the elections and being a target to the naxals did not deter him from forging ahead in politics. He took part in several agitations since his school days. Saraiah did Industrial Training Institute (ITI) and worked as an electrician for about two years in Kakatiya University before entering politics. He was elected as a councillor in Warangal municipality for two times in 1981 and 1986 and again in 1994.

He contested as independent against former Minister T Purushottam Rao and was defeated. He got Congress party ticket and contested from Narasampet Assembly constituency in 1994 and was defeated again.

In 1999, he was first elected as MLA from Warangal Assembly and there has been no looking back since. He was again elected as MLA in 2004 and 2009 consecutively. He served as BC welfare minister from 2011 to 2014 in the then Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy cabinet.

He was the first person to be elected to the Assembly in entire south India from the washerman community.

He also served as Warangal District Congress Committee (DCC) president and during this term in 1992 the naxals tried to kill him. He also served as the Telangana Congress Party Forum on Telangana to look into the separate Telangana issue.

Saraiah joined the ruling TRS party in February 2016 and has been waiting for his due. Though he was on the sidelines for four years, he never expressed his displeasure over the leadership.