Hyderabad: The ruling Congress in Telangana is not immune to, what is by now, an accepted norm – fielding expatriates from rival parties as its candidates in the coming parliamentary elections.
Three out of five candidates announced by the Congress high command in its third list on Thursday (March 21) night are defectors from the Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS), while the fourth is a rank outsider to politics who will make his debut in polls.
What is even more surprising is that the BRS’s Khairatabad MLA, Danam Nagender, who won the assembly polls only three months ago, was picked up by the Congress even before he resigned from his former party.
Just four days after he posed for a photograph with chief minister and Telangana Congress committee president A. Revanth Reddy while accepting the party’s colours, he was declared its candidate from Secunderabad.
The BRS has now petitioned assembly speaker G. Prasad Kumar seeking Nagender’s disqualification as per the anti-defection law.
Two other BRS leaders – G. Ranjith Reddy, the sitting MP from Chevella and a major player in the poultry industry; and G. Sunitha Mahender Reddy, who is the zilla parishad chairperson of Vikarabad district – also got tickets as Congress candidates from Chevella and Malkajgiri constituencies respectively.
Ranjith Reddy and Nagender joined the Congress on the same day.
Sunitha Mahender Reddy, wife of BRS MLC and former minister Mahender Reddy, was earlier sounded out for a Congress ticket from Chevella but was accommodated at Malkajgiri, reportedly against her wishes.
Like Nagender, Mahender Reddy has also not resigned from the legislative council.
Former Congress MP from Nagarkurnool (SC reserved) Mallu Ravi was renominated from the same constituency while Gaddam Vamshi Krishna was selected from Peddapalli (SC), a constituency represented thrice by his grandfather and former Union minister Venkatswamy.
He will begin his political career straight away.
A former Congress MLA, A. Sampath Kumar was overlooked for the Nagarkurnool seat, though he wrote a letter to former party president Sonia Gandhi requesting his candidature to be considered.
In all, the Congress, which is making a strong bid to repeat its performance in the assembly elections, has set its eyes on winning horses in its selection of candidates.
It poured cold water on the ambition of former Hyderabad mayor Bonthu Rammohan and his wife Sridevi, a corporator, in getting a ticket from Secunderabad after the couple had quit the BRS last month to join the Congress.
The Congress has so far selected candidates for nine out of 17 parliamentary constituencies in Telangana that will go to elections.
The party played it safe in its earlier list of four candidates by selecting Vamshi Chand Reddy for Mahabubnagar, former Union minister of state P. Balram Naik for Mahabubabad, former Congress legislature party leader K. Jana Reddy’s son Raghuveer for Nalgonda and former MP Suresh Shetkar for Zaheerabad.
All of them got tickets on their home turfs.
The selection became tough with leaders from the BRS joining the Congress in a big way as the party consolidated its position after winning the assembly polls.
Chief minister Reddy’s declaration that he has “opened the flood gates” for entrants into the party received instant reactions from leaders like Nagender and Ranjith Reddy.
If the trend is any indication, sources said more surprises were in store in the selection of candidates for the remaining eight constituencies.
At stake, notably, was the selection for Nizamabad seat, where former minister T. Jeevan Reddy is a strong aspirant.
The BJP’s play
The BJP is also poaching candidates from the BRS to make its lineup strong. Both the Congress and the BJP are preying on the BRS in an effort to outsmart each other.
The BJP gave tickets to two sitting MPs, two former MPs and a former MLA of the BRS who joined the party in the last few days.
It has emerged as a strong contender, winning eight seats and obtaining a vote share of 14% in the assembly polls. The Congress won 64 seats and polled 39.7% of the vote, while the BRS won 39 seats and polled 37.6% of the vote.
The state assembly has 119 seats.
The stakes for the BJP have gone up in the coming elections with the arrest of BRS MLC and former chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao’s daughter, K. Kavitha, in the Delhi liquor scam.
BJP leaders were often confronted with questions on differential treatment for Kavitha by not arresting her, while the other accused in the case, including former Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, languished in jail for over a year.
They expressed relief that the question did not haunt them anymore and that they could freely approach voters.
Political analyst K. Nageshwar said the Congress is depending on defectors in its allotment of tickets wherever the party is not strong.
For instance, it looked for outsiders in constituencies like Secunderabad and Malkajgiri within the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation’s limits, where the party fared badly in the assembly elections. It did not have a uniform policy across the state.
On the other hand, the BJP adopted a different strategy of identifying strong candidates on the basis of winnability.
BJP state general secretary G. Premender Reddy said the party had plenty of candidates to choose from but looked for outsiders with winning chances on the basis of various equations and surveys.
Telangana Congress committee working president B. Mahesh Kumar Goud recalled that one of the three BRS leaders who were given tickets, Nagender, was a former Congressman who jumped to the BRS after Telangana was formed.
He had won as a Telugu Desam Party candidate from the Asifnagar assembly constituency in the erstwhile united Andhra Pradesh after the Congress denied him a ticket during the chief ministership of Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, but resigned as MLA within days to return to the Congress.
However, he lost the following by-election.
He was the Congress’s health minister in the assembly’s next term.
BRS
BRS president K. Chandrashekar Rao on Friday (March 22) announced former IPS officer R.S. Praveen Kumar as the party’s candidate from Nagarkurnool.
Interestingly, Praveen Kumar resigned as the state president of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to join the BRS recently. He had even negotiated an alliance between the BRS and BSP along with BSP Rajya Sabha member Ramji Gautam.
However, a day later, Kumar announced his resignation from the BSP, saying party supremo Mayawati had mounted pressure on him to call off the alliance.
The alliance contemplated the allotment of Nagarkurnool and Hyderabad seats to the BSP.
Rao also announced the candidature of former IAS officer and now MLC P. Venkatarami Reddy from the Medak constituency.
