Cong candidate admits defeat ahead of polls

Nuzvid (Krishna): “This is not my election. I am in the race just to tell my people that I am in politics,” sitting MLA Chinnam Ramakotaiah said. When every other candidate fighting this battle is in the thick of campaigning, this first-time legislator, who is now on Congress ticket, was seen relaxing in his office interacting with a dozen supporters on how to improve his campaigning just to tell his people that he is in politics. “I know I am in third place with the Telugu Desam Party and the YSR Congress Party fighting an electrifying battle,” he said. When asked why he is accepting defeat, he comes out with one single reason – lack of money on hand. “Let us forget about the parties. Give me money, I will win this election. Why me? Even an Independent or any of the small CPI-ML party candidates will win. The election is all about money and how it reaches the voter in the last 48 days, besides organising an impressive campaign all through,” is what he asserts. He further says that the vote bank alone will not contribute to the victory of any candidate. “We need to buy votes and even pay the same money for the vote bank to retain. This is because people are not expecting anything from an MLA,” he says leaning back to his chair.

Claiming that he had seen how money can influence the voting pattern, Ramakotaiah says that two leaders have spoiled the system where they have kept democracy aside and given importance to bureaucracy. “It was first Chandrababu Naidu who kept his MLAs aside and started dealing directly with the officials right from the mandal level. The elected leaders were at the mercy of the officials and Chief Minister alone became strong. Rajasekhara Reddy had further stabilised this system and made the elected representatives, except a few who are close to him, dummies. Today, a village secretary is powerful than the MLA. Everything is decided by the Chief Minister or the district in-charge minister. This had weakened the importance of MLA and people have understood this. So they are not expecting anything from their MLA,” he said.

“People are aware of the fact that the pensions will come in routine. Roads, drains, houses and other welfare measures too will flow in the stream. There is no role for the MLA in all these because they are decided and doled out at the whims and fancies of the leader at the helm,” he said citing some of the incidents he had seen during the last five years as legislator. Having secured around Rs 375.63 crore for his constituency in the last five years, Ramakotaiah says that people understand these works in their own way. “I have secured Krishna river water for Nuzvid at a cost of Rs 60 crore. But people say ‘if not you, somebody would have got it and if not now someday we would have got it’. This is how they are interpreting and understanding the leaders,” he said. However, he is optimistic and says that the good olden days of people respecting leaders and democracy coming out of the clutches of the bureaucracy would come back because everything is a cycle.