TRS sees negative impact of cashflow

Hyderabad: Why did TRS lose the Huzurabad byelection? This is the question that causes concern among the top-level leadership of the party though on the face of it party working president K T Rama Rao dismissed it as an insignificant poll as far as the TRS was concerned. He commented that the party had seen many ups and downs during the last two decades.

What the TRS is not able to understand is why even the schemes like Dalit Bandhu failed to attract the voters. According to preliminary assessment, they feel that there was a lack of coordination among the leaders who were drafted for campaign and there were irregularities in the distribution of money.

Though a large contingent of TRS leaders camped in the constituency months prior to the announcement of the schedule, the party leaders feel that there was a lack of coordination among them. A senior leader of the party said the announcement of the schemes like Dalit Bandhu could not even bail out the party.

The manner in which Eatala was treated and forced out of the party had also evoked a lot of sympathy for him. The intense campaign and cadre support from the BJP were also an added factor for the victory of Eatala, feel the TRS leaders. What has come as a major shock for the TRS was that the party had lost even in Shalapally village where the Dalit Bandhu scheme was implemented. The party leaders also feel that the TRS candidate could not match the popularity of Eatala who had been continuously winning the polls from this constituency.

The leaders felt that the distribution of money among voters had also left a negative impact on the party prospects. This led to dissatisfaction among the voters and some of them even staged a dharna stating that they were not paid, said another TRS leader. But one thing is certain that the credit for the party getting 82,348 votes to a great extent goes to Finance Minister T Harish Rao, who had left no stone unturned and had touched almost every house in the constituency.