Race for one-upmanship delay’s mayor’s appointment

Warangal: Albeit it’s been more than one-and-a-half-month since the Greater Warangal Mayor post is up for grab, the TRS leadership is yet to take a call on it. The party leadership is dillydallying about the zeroing in on selecting the Mayor due to the internal politics of its people’s representatives, according to some party leaders. 

What makes them opposing a Corporator of the City elevating to Mayor post is for obvious reasons.  Some local leaders do not want one more leader from the city grow equal to their stature politically, become a power centre and turn a potential candidate in the race for Assembly ticket in the future. 

As of now, the top contenders for the Mayor post are Vaddiraj Ganesh (27th division Corporator), Gunda Prakash Rao (26th division), Dasyam Vijay Bhaskar (50th division) and Gundu Aashritha Reddy (24th division), this is in addition to the present in-charge Mayor Khaja Sirajuddin (41st division). While these Corporators are making rounds to their political godfathers, the candidature of Nagamalla Jhansi Laxmi, the 56th division Corporator, has suddenly sprang up in the race for the Mayor post. 

It’s said that Jhansi, who belongs to Hasanparthy, a merged village of the Greater Warangal Municipal Corporation (GWMC), is the choice of leaders. It’s widely speculated that Wardhannapet MLA Aroori Ramesh is backing the candidature of Jhansi. This apart, it’s reported that other MLAs whose constituency areas are part of Greater Warangal have no qualms about the candidature of Jhansi. 

The 51-year-old Jhansi is no novice to the politics as she had worked in different capacities such as Mandal Praja Parishad president and ZPTC member etc, besides actively participating in the Telangana Movement along with her husband Suresh.

“The party leadership is to send an observer to elicit information about the candidates who are vying for the post,” a senior TRS leader told The Hans India, on condition of anonymity. Meanwhile, the other Corporators are leaving no stone unturned to latch the opportunity of becoming Mayor. Some of them are frequenting to Hyderabad every now and then to pursue their ambition. 

It may be mentioned here that Mayor post fell vacant after the resignation of Nannapuneni Narender, who got elected as MLA from the Warangal East constituency in the recent elections to the Assembly. Thereafter, the Deputy Mayor Khaja Sirajuddin was appointed as the in-charge Mayor of the city, which is seen as a stop-gap arrangement.