Know what really shocked the ruling TRS to no end in Huzurabad bypoll? Not the victory of Eatala. The TRS was expecting him to somehow scrape through. Not even the majority. They saw it coming. But, what left them shell shocked is that not all TRS party members stood by the TRS. At least 20 percent of the party workers and members have gone with Eatala.

The TRS has over 1.05 lakh members in Huzurabad. In fact, this is the highest membership in any constituency in Telangana. This means that at least 80 per cent of the voters in the constituency are TRS members. But the party got just 82000 votes. This means over 20000 persons, officially party members, have not voted for the party. Let alone outsiders, even party members did not vote for the TRS.

This has left the TRS leaders shocked. The party is worried about those who have betrayed party candidate Gellu Srinivas Yadav. The party has realized that despite the efforts of Harish Rao and several ministers, MLAs, the party could not get its own members to vote for the party. The TRS is worried that this could happen in other constituencies too.

Hence the top leadership is planning to initiate very tough action against those who played truant. It has reportedly prepared a list of the leaders, who did not work for the party. It was also realized that many of those who wore the TRS pink stoles were actually working for Eatala. Hence, it is planning tough action against them.

On the last day of the election campaign in Huzurabad, the TRS got an unexpected shock. An announcement by the revenue and health officials appears to have the potential to undo all the great campaign work that the ruling TRS did all these days. A jittery TRS tried to make amends but to no avail.

On Tuesday, there were rumours that those who did not get Covid vaccinated would not get PDS material and welfare pension. It was said that a statement to this effect was made by DMHO Dr Srinivasa Rao. This led to panic among the people and the news spread like wildfire. Meanwhile, realising the damage this rumour could do, the TRS got health director Srinivasa Rao to issue a clarification.

But even before this clarification reached the people, Gadwal collector Valluru Krianthi tweeted saying that those who did not get vaccinated would not get their pensions and ration in November. Sources said that such internal instructions were issued in all the districts to achieve 100 per cent vaccination. The officials in interior areas have issued these instructions.

Now, the opposition BJP and the Congress have taken this news to every nook and corner of Huzurabad constituency. A worried TRS is now trying to repair the damage before the polling day.

The ruling TRS is making every effort possible to defeat renegade leader and BJP candidate Eatala Rajender in the Huzurabad byelections. It has already begun showering Huzurabad with sops and has even launched schemes like the Dalit Bandhu. There is another strategy that the TRS is using. The strategy is to field as many independents as possible with name and initial resembling Eatala Rajender.

According to sources, as many as 5 candidates with the name E Rajender are in the fray in Huzurabad. Among the candidates are Easampalli Rajender, Immadi Rajender,Ippatipalli Rajender and several others. When abbreviated, they write their names as E Rajender. With names like this, it is easy to confuse the voters. While Immadi Rajender is a candidate of the Republican Party of India, Esampalli Rajender is from the New India Party. Similarly, Ippalapalli Rajender, who is from the All India BC OBC party, is also in the fray.

It may be recalled that KA Paul had put up almost 70 candidates whose name resembles the official YSRCP candidates during the 2019 elections. It is another matter that none of them managed to even secure the security deposit. Political observers feel that such namesake candidates will end up confusing the voters and could play a key role in the close contests.

Significantly, only recently KCR has impressed upon the need to remove any symbol with even remote resemblance to car such as lorry, truck, road roller and even roti belan from the list of free symbols to ensure that there is no disadvantage to the TRS official candidates. It remains to be seen how Eatala tackles this challenge.

Kalvakuntla Kavitha, Nizambad MLC and daughter of TRS president and Telangana Chief Minister K.Chandrashekar Rao received a jolt as her name did not figure in the list of TRS star campaigners for Huzurabad Assembly bypoll.

The bypoll is scheduled for October 30.

The TRS reportedly submitted the list of 20 star campaingers to Election Commission of India on Friday (today).

Speculations are rife in TRS circles that Kavitha’s name is missing from this list. Rajya Sabha member Joginapally Santosh Kumar was also been kept out of the star campaigners list.

Kavitha used to be the star campaigner for TRS in all the elections during Telangana statehood agitation until Telangana Assembly polls in December 2018.

She used to campaign in districts for TRS candidates.

However, the party leadership is sidelining her since 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Her services are not utilised for party especially after her father KCR made his son KTR the party’s working president.

Since then, she is being confined to only Nizamabad district. She has no position in the party or government at present though there were speculations that KCR will take her into his cabinet after she got elected as MLC in October 2020.

But even after a year, she was not taken into cabinet and Kavitha is reportedly upset at her father and brother for ignoring her.