Oppn, ruling still clueless on winning horses

Vikarabad: As the TRS is yet to announce its candidate in this constituency, in view of ill-health of former legislator Sanjeeva Rao, the field is wide open for aspirants to canvass for party ticket.  Rao won the seat with 10,072 votes majority against his nearest Congress candidate and sitting MLA Gaddam Prasad Kumar in the last 2014 elections.

With each passing day, the number of ticket hopefuls is only increasing. Most of them are camping in Hyderabad and lobbying for the ticket at their respective party headquarters. New faces are also competing with veterans in the ticket race. Taking a cue from the situation in the pink party, other parties also have not announced the names of candidates. Each and every party is scouring for winning horses who can pull through pitched poll battle. According to sources, caretaker minister P Mahender Reddy will take a final call on TRS candidate. 

Most of aspirants are using their influence and contacts to impress upon Municipal Minister K T Rama Rao and other senior leaders to consider their candidature. But the party leaders are of the view that the high-command will field a candidate who will give tough fight to a candidate from grand alliance or any other key political party. Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee vice-president and main aspirant among others Gaddam Prasad Kumar launched his poll campaign on October 1. He was vigorously hoisting party flag at various villages. As far as TRS was concerned, Dr Vidyasagar, Dr Metuku Anand, Nandu, Rameshwar, Ramchander Rao, Bhumula Krishnaiah are in the foray for the ticket. Dr T Anand’s name also heard among party circles. 

District admin on a war-footing

Irrespective of parties’ poll readiness, Vikarabad District Collector Syed Omer Jaleel is putting entire administrative mechanism on its toes. Electoral equipment like EVMs and VVPATS have already reached the collectorate. First round checking of the equipment was recently concluded. 

Mock polling has been conducting from every gram panchayat to municipal ward to create awareness on voting among people. Seminars were also conducted at various places. As many as 40 teams are exclusively engaged for this cause. The Collector said that apart from providing wheel chairs at polling centres, they are trying to arrange vehicles to bring the disabled to polling centres.