Nalgonda local bodies MLC polls: It's one side war

Nalgonda: Political situation regarding local bodies MLC polls for Nalgonda district has changed compared to previous election.

Local body MLC by-election was necessitated in 2019 after the then MLC Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy quit the post after he was elected as MLA from Munugodu constituency in 2018 Assembly elections. The changed political equations helped TRS candidate Tera Chinnapa Reddy to defeat Rajgopal Reddy's wife Shobha by more than 200 votes in local body MLC by-election held in 2019.

In 2015 local body MLC election, Congress candidate Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy defeated TRS candidate Tera Chinnapa Reddy by 150 votes. In both the elections, both parties have slight differences of local body representatives, and cross voting and change of parties by voters helped the winners.

It may be noted here that in both general and by-election of local bodies MLC election, the candidates of TRS and Congress have organised camp politics and allegedly paid Rs 2 to Rs 3 lakhs to each voter (local bodies representatives, MPTCs, ZPTCs and municipal councilors).

It came to know that a few councilors took money from both the candidates and recovered the expenses of their own election.

Fresh election notification for local bodies MLC seat of Nalgonda district was announced as the present MLC Tera Chinnapa Reddy term was over. Now the situation is quite different compared to previous 2015 general election and 2019 by-election of local bodies MLC of the district. Of the total 1,271 local bodies representatives (MPTCs, ZPTCs and municipal councilors) from the erstwhile Nalgonda district, TRS has more than 800 votes, whereas Congress and other parties have 256 and 30 to 40 votes respectively in their account.

Statistics of political parties' strength reveals that it will be a cake-walk for the TRS to win local bodies MLC election this time, as Congress reportedly not daring to field it's candidate in the MLC election. After the election notification was announced, not a single nomination was filed so far for these election in the district. The last date for filing nomination is November 23, with only two days left.

Sitting local body MLC Tera Chinnapa Reddy and MLC post promised MC Koti Reddy, both from Nagarjuna Sagar constituency, tried their level best to get party ticket. But with the support of Minister Jagadish Reddy, all the MLAs of the ruling party in the district and assurance of Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao during Nagarjuna Sagar by election, on Sunday Koti Reddy got the chance to contest as party candidate for the election. He thanked everyone, who supported him in getting the MLC ticket, and exuded confidence of winning with a huge majority with the blessings of party leaders and local bodies voters. On the other hand, the situation in Congress party is different and the leaders were in dilemma whether to contest or not in local body MLC elections, as they do not have sufficient local body votes to win the race this time.

Speaking to The Hans India, DCC president said that party will contest in local body elections if any one comes forward and willing to contest on his own expenses and risk, as local body MLC elections became costly affair.

Whereas the situation of BJP is quite different, which do not have even 20 votes in local body elections. Probably BJP may not field its party candidate in MLC election and may even boycott to maintain equal distance from both TRS and Congress.