Battle cries are there to be heard everywhere in the Warangal Lok Sabha constituency. The charges of poll code violations, attacks and counter attacks, accusations and counter accusations, promises of government, alleged backing out on promises- the war of words has intensified in the constituency. Choicest abuses are being bandied around freely.
The political atmosphere has got warmed up with the arrival of senior AICC stalwarts such as Digvijay Singh, Meira Kumar, Sachin Pilot etc have descended on the constituency. Rare spectacle is in the campaign was the presence of former union minister S Jaipal Reddy. Jaipal’s presence show the importance the Congress attached to the win in Warangal. TRS has already deployed half of the cabinet including chief minister son K T Ramarao and nephew T. Harish Rao. Every trick of the trade is being employed by the ruling party to retain the seat at any cost as the loss has the potential to upset the chief minister KCR’s apple cart. On behalf of BJP, union labor minister Bandaru Dattatreya has been touring the constituency along with BJP state president G Kishan Reddy. The only party which is going around silently, talking about the government failures and the need to have decent representation from Warangal in Lok Sabha is the Left which has fielded renowned law professor Gali Vinodkumar. From YSR Congress, the star campaigner , YS Jaganmohan Reddy is going to add to the sound and fury of the campaign, His principal enemy is not TRS in the election, but the TDP. He is likely to criticize TDP first and then Congress later TRS.
Free flow of abuses
TRS, which is encircled by all political parties, sees its principal rival in Congress. The party raised the bogey of non-local status of Sarve Satyarayana, the Congress candidate, to rake up local versus non-local sentiment in the elections. TRS strategy to hit the Congress below the belt has set off a fierce war of words. The opposition party pounced on TRS from all sides to counter the remark and revealed to public how KCR and his family members chose non-local constituencies in every election. Sarve Satyanarayana took the attack to peak using all sorts of epithets for chief minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao such as “Chavata”, “Daddamma”, “Sanyasi”, “Bewakoof” , “Bakkodu”, ” Pittala Dora”. Congress dig his KCR’s past and accused him of indulging in all corrupt practices when he was labor minister at the centre. Sarve said KCR fell on the feet of Prime Minister Modi last week to get himself bailed out of these charges as centre ordered CBI inquiry into the scam.
What so many ministers doing in Warangal?
BJP state president G. Kishanreddy wondered as to what the TRS ministers posted in all assembly segments were doing. ” People are so angry about the TRS government that the more than half a dozen ministers, the chief minister deployed for elections, are not able to go around without security. Ministers are also scared of public unrest.” he said. He is leading the BJP poll campaign in the constituency. He blamed TRS for the plight of the cotton farmers in the district. Dattatreya was a bit harsh while attacking the TRS. Addressing an election meeting in Hanamkonda, Dattatreya said people had started questioning the TRS ministers in every meeting as the party failed in all aspects. ” It clearly show how unhappy the people of Warangal are with TRS government. Having seen the family rule and corrupt governance of KCR, people will teach the party a lesson in the byelection,” he said.
TRS spews fire on Dattatreya
Irrigation minister and one of the poll managers of the TRS T Harish Rao accused opposition leaders, especially of BJP, of trying to mislead farmers with regard to the TRS government’s commitment towards cotton farmers. Apart from participating in the public meeting, he even release a press note to repudiate charges of opposition parties. Harish Rao asserted that the State government was doing better than the Central government as far as cotton purchases were concerned despite lack of support from the Centre. He said central minister Bandaru Dattatreya should get his figures cross checked before criticizing the government.
Harish demanded that the Centre clarify as to why it had failed to honor its promise of increasing minimum support price for cotton. “As per the BJP election assurance, the minimum support price for cotton should have been now at Rs 6,000, but it was only Rs 4,050. Whose fault is this ?,” he asked. He dared Dattatreya to influence the CCI to purchase the cotton from farmer. He dubbed the union labor ministers as cheat.
Blaming the Cotton Corporation of India(CCI) for failing to purchase cotton from farmers, Harish said CCI Chairman D Mishra had ignored the State government’s invitation to attend a meeting to discuss the plight of the cotton farmers. Cotton is a sensitive subject as many of the farmers in the district eke out their livelihood by cotton cultivation. But, due to present glut in the cotton market farmers are committing suicides in big number.
Mission Five Lakh Votes
The Congress candidate Sarve Satyanarayana has set an ambitious target to win the election with a five lakh vote margin. And he is confident of achieving it. He said he was contesting the poll with a pledge to serve the people of Warangal till he breathes his last. When in Parliament, he said, he spoke on behalf of ten districts of Telangana. The voters of the constituency know it pretty well. With this confidence he set the target of getting five lakh vote majority in the bypoll. He set the same target for the 2014 elections when we was the Congress nominee in Malkajgiri Lok Sabha constituency. Unfortunately, he missed the target.
YS Jagan to campaign in Warangal
YSR Congress president YS Jaganmohan Reddy is set off on whirlwind tour in Warangal constituency to campaign for its candidate Nalla Suryaprakash Rao from November 16-19. He will begin his campaign from Torruru from Monday. He will address in public meetings, car rallies and road shows in the four-day hectic tour. On November 17, he will address a public meeting in Parakala and later visit villages around Parakala. He is scheduled to address public meeting in Hanmakonda and Station Ghanapur as well. On the first day i.e. on November 16, he will travel about 101 km addressing meetings in Palakurthi, Jafargad, Vardhannapet , Rayaparti and Hanmakonda. On the second day, Nov 17, he travels through Atmakur, Saympet, Regonda, Bhupalpalli, Parakala covering 140 km. On the third he is scheduled to visit Tiigaraju palli, Sangem, Geesukonda, Warangal and Hanamkonda, where a public meeting is planned, covering 76 km. On the final day he will travel 62 km covering Dharmasagar, Station Ghanpur and Raghuntha palli.
No sentiment around to save TRS
TRS MP from Chevella Konda Visweswar Reddy said the spirit of the T-movement was amiss among the party cadre and the people now. A big win in Warangal appears to be an uphill task, he felt. ” As the T-sentiment is on the wane, unless the party works to mobilize more voters to polling centres winning with huge majority is difficult for the party,” he said in Jangoan. Party should concentrate on huge polling in the byelection, he opined
Hopes of berth in union cabinet
BJP, which has fielded its candidate with support of Telugu Desam party, is campaigning that its candidate Dr Devaiah was sure to become a union minister if he won the election. BJP is not visible in the constituency on its own. TDP is its strength. First the party hoped that TDP president Chandrababu Naidu would address a couple of meetings in constituency. Now, as Naidu reluctant to campaign in a ‘byelection’ as the national leader, BJP started telling the people that Warangal would have a central minister if Devaiah was given mandate.
