Ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and its chief K Chandrasekhara Rao may be confident to sweep Lok Sabha polls. He may boast of bagging all 16 out 17 seats, leave the lone Hyderabad to its all-weather ally, All India Ittehadul-e-Muslimeen (AIMIM).
Yet, the party and chief would not like to be complacent or overconfident of their ‘clean sweep’ claim. For the party as well to KCR, the Nizamad parliament constituency has become more prestigious as his daughter K Kavitha, is seeking re-election. She is fighting to retain the seat facing stiff challenging this time around not just from Congress nominee Madhu Yaski Goud, but also from the BJP. Seeing an outside chance, the BJP has fielded D Aravind, who is son of former Congress heavyweight D Srinivas. He enjoys the backing of his community (Mudiraj) members, who form major chunk of the total electorate.
Deciding not to leave any chance for the rivals to seize the opportunity to snatch the seat, the TRS Chief managed to rope in another former TDP member, Mandava Venkateswar Rao.
Rao, won from Ditchpally (now Nizamabad-rural) assembly constituency in the past, not once, but five times. He also served as Irrigation Minister and also in the coterie of then party president and chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu.
Considerable Andhra settlers in Ditchpally area also a major factor that forced KCR to lure Rao, whose influence over the electorate is known.
Well, Kavitha might have won with comfortable margin in 2014 polls. But, this time around she is facing stiff challenge.
Not from her traditional opponent Madhu Yaski Goud of Congress, but also the BJP. The BJP could find a strong candidate in D Arvind, son of former Congress President D Srinivas. The contest, thus far become a triangular, instead straight fight.
However, many feel, the fight is between the TRS and BJP, pushing Congress to a poor third place.
In the past the Congress candidate Madhu Yaski Goud won Nizamabad Lok Sabha seat twice in 2004 and 2009. But, it was snatched away from him by the TRS candidate Kavitha in 2014 by an impressive margin of little over a lakh of votes.
Though, Kavitha may retain the seat. But, what margin is the question on everyone’s lips.
Large numbers of farmers storming into electoral fray made the Nizamabad Lok Sabha constituency election, all the more curious. A record 185 candidates are in the fray for April 11 polls.