Mahabubnagar: Congress, BJP stay away from filing nominations for MLC

Mahabubnagar: With no contestants from Congress or Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) filing their nominations for the upcoming local bodies elections on the final day of nominations on Tuesday, it has given clear indications that the TRS party is having its upper hand in winning the MLC elections from Mahabubnagar district.

On the final day of MLC nominations as many as 10 persons submitted their nominations for the local bodies MLC seat from erstwhile Mahabubnagar district. However, of the 10 persons 2 persons are the sitting TRS MLC members.

Kasireddy Narayanreddy from Kalwakurthy and Kuchukurla Damodar Reddy from Nagarkurnool are the candidates from the TRS.

The remaining members are all independent candidates who filed their nominations for the MLC elections.

Surprisingly 4 members among those who filed their nominations as independent candidates are MPTCs from representing Congress party.

As the election authorities will scrutinize the nominations on November 24 and 25th, the final withdrawal for the candidates is on November 26th and the elections will be held at 10 centres across the erstwhile Mahabubnagar which includes Mahabubnagar, Kodangal, Wanaparthy, Narayanpet, Gadwal, Kollapur, Nagarkurnool, Achampet, Kalwakurthy and Shadnagar.

As per the election authorities there are about 1,445 eligible voters in the erstwhile Mahabubnagar.

In Mahabubnagar constituency alone there are 82 ZPTCs and 896 MPTCs and majority of them are from TRS party.

However, according to sources the MPTC state association leaders have expressed their dissent against the state government and have decided to contest with some of their members in the MLC elections to let the government know about their dissatisfaction over the way the government has denied them their rightful constitutional powers.

According to MPTC association state leader MSI Farookh, though the 73rd constitutional amendment has led to the creation of mandal parishad system, the elected representatives under this system neither have powers nor the respect and they are acting as just dummy puppets in the system. The MPTCs, as a part of their protest have asked for 6 demands from the government and to press for the same has decided to put some of the MPTCs to contest the elections. As part of this, 4 Congress MPTCs have submitted their nominations to the district election officer on the final day of nominations.

"We want to press the government about our demands and to let it know about our plights we have decided to file nominations to the MLC elections. Our demands are to allocate Rs. 20 lakhs to each Mandal Parishad constituency for development. Also the government must pay an honorarium of Rs. 15,000 to each MPTC, apart from creating a special chamber for the MPTCs in each Panchayats and the government should make it mandatory for the MPTCs to hoist flag at local schools on the occasion of Independence and Republic day celebrations," said Krishna, a member of MPTCs association from Gadwal district.

Overall, the TRS party with majority MPTCs from the party is having a clear upper hand and is expected to win both the MLC seats from the district.