It pays to know rebels in rival parties

​Hyderabad: Keeping an ear to the ground to learn what the enemy is doing pays rich dividends, especially during election time. The strategies that the parties are scripting focus on wrecking the other parties using all the tricks in their bags. For instance, the parties are getting in touch with the disgruntled elements in other parties who are denied tickets to help them contest as rebels and divide the votes between them and the official candidates.

Even as Mahakutami is yet to announce candidates for the ensuing elections, TRS chief K Chandrashekar Rao had a surprise in store for his party candidates at the B-form distribution meeting on Sunday when he spelt out the names of two TDP candidates that the TRS nominees would have to face in the elections. KCR had reportedly told Warangal West candidate D Vinay Bhaskar that his rival would be Revuri Prakash Reddy of the TDP. Similarly, the TRS nominee for Malakpet would have to reckon with Muzafar Ali of the TDP.

Sources said that the TRS chief also informed the candidates that Mahakutami was in confusion on seats like Khairatabad, Amberpet and LB Nagar. These constituencies were represented by the BJP and TDP, respectively. Sources said the TRS chief had assured the party candidates that they would not have problems in constituencies where the Mahakutami is contesting as they would have advantage of rebels within the Mahakutami.

It is common knowledge that every political party has coverts in other parties, who give feedback on the activities in that party. These informers give the information by being in the other camp. This is the reason why the Mahakutami leaders particularly the Telangana Jana Samithi have been maintaining secrecy in their activities.

Sources said that though candidates have been finalised, the Mahakutami has been deliberately delaying the announcement of the candidates and whenever there is news about probable candidates list doing the rounds, the parties are denying that they have made any such announcement. This is because of the possibility of either the rebels throwing in their hat in the ring or shifting loyalty to the other party. As far as TRS is concerned, it has announced candidates for 107 seats only as against 119 seats.

Highly-placed sources said that Mahakutami leaders are thinking of changing candidates in some constituencies at the instance of Telugu Desam chief N Chandrababu Naidu. Sources said that the Congress would be fielding M Sashidhar Reddy from Secunderabad and Kuna Venkatesh would be the candidate of the TDP from Sanathnagar. It is learnt that the TDP chief wanted Kuna Venkatesh to be given the ticket from Sanathnagar as he would be a strong contender against Minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav and not Shashidhar Reddy though he represented the constituency earlier.

The TRS, it is learnt, is eagerly waiting for the announcement of candidates by Mahakutami so that it would get know who the rebels would be. During the Sunday meeting, the TRS chief had indicated about the possibility of a number of Mahakutami rebels remaining in the fray making it much easier for the pink party candidates in winning the elections.