Eatala Rajender's self-respect slogan beats TRS tactics

Karimnagar: Does former Minister Eatala Rajender's victory in Huzurabad by-election casts shadow over the TRS and Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao's future? This triggered a debate in political circles.

Contrary to everyone's expectations, BJP candidate Rajender' victory with a huge majority created sensation in State politics. The ruling party might not even dream that the voters of Huzurabad constituency would vote for Rajender.

The CM's action against a Cabinet Minister within 24 hours after an ordinary farmer complains against Eatala at Pragathi Bhavan generated a debate in the State and in Huzurabad also.

Eatala took the matter seriously and went head on with CM KCR, quit MLA post and joined BJP. Then he challenged KCR in Huzurabad by-election.

Finance Minister T Harish Rao himself entered the election battle as in-charge of the by-election and worked tirelessly for 120 days but in vain. Not to mention that the tactics devised by the ruling party to defeat Rajender badly, led to fierce criticism by the people.

It was alleged that the TRS government's move to transfer all officials close to Rajender in Huzurabad helped to increase sympathy for him. Also, people gave the credit for the development of Huzurabad and Jammikunta municipalities with Rs 300 crore to the former Minister.

The ruling party's move to welcome a former Minister Enugala Peddi Reddy, Congress leader P Kaushik Reddy, former market chairman T Sammireddy and all the second rung leaders into the TRS reportedly gone without result.

Allocation of lands, funds for construction of buildings, nearly a hundred meetings, half a dozen ministers, dozens of MLAs have camped in Huzurabad for three months, but the ruling party failed to keep up its reputation.

Rajender, who has been available to the people for seven and a half years, has developed inseparable bond with the people of Huzurabad. Activities such as developing Huzurabad and assistaning those in distress helped him to win with ease.

The by-election results on Tuesday also showed that even though Rajender joined the BJP, Muslims and some other sections voted for him. It is interesting that Rajender was able to maintain his vote bank even after joining the lotus party.

His slogan of self-respect, without taking the BJP name during campaigns, and repeated statements of alleged arrogance of the Chief Minister seems to have given full results with indirect cooperation of the Congress.

Though the CM tried lure Dalits with Dalit Bandhu scheme worth Rs 2,000 crore, Dalits inclined towards Eatala. Now this raised doubt about the fate of the scheme implementation in future.

As a last resort, the ruling party was reportedly distributed huge amount per vote and it was alleged that 90 per cent of the money was misappropriated by TRS leaders and cadres. Huzurabad by-election proved that money alone cannot help to win the election.