Campaign hots up in medak

Hyderabad: Medak by-election, slated for September 13, has set the mercury rising in Telangana with three major political parties in fray doing everything to seek the confidence of voters and there by bagging the seat. The entire top brass of these parties are presently camping in Medak to ensure their candidate pass the first litmus test in the newly-formed State.

The ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) is not worried about the victory but is concentrating all its energies on securing a ‘huge majority’. It is very confident that people would repose faith in the pink party once again. Chief Minister and TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao romped home with a majority of over 3.9 lakh votes in the general election. The sole aim of the pink party is to cross this majority this time and hence entire Cabinet and key leaders have been deputed to oversee party strategies in Medak.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), on the other hand, has two things on mind. A BJP win against all odds in Medak would dent the confidence of the ruling TRS. Also a win would enable the state unit to fall into the good books of the national leadership, which was reportedly unhappy with party performance in general elections despite extending full support to statehood.

On the other hand, the Congress is doing its bit to regain the confidence of voters by singing the same old tune that “Congress alone and not the TRS was responsible for separate state”, which interestingly did not find any takers from the public during general elections.
The fight is mainly between these three parties. While the TDP is supporting the BJP, the TRS got the backing of the CPI for this election. While TRS leader T Harish Rao is leading the campaign for the party, the Congress has pressed its star campaigners Digvijay Singh, Sachin Pilot, Md Azharuddin and Jyotiraditya Scindia.

The TRS has fielded a businessmen Kotha Prabhaker Reddy while the Congress roped in former minister Sunitha Laxma Reddy. However, the choice of the BJP to offer ticket to T Jagga Reddy, who was in the Congress before his candidature was announced on the last day of nomination, amidst drama, caught everybody off-guard in political circles.

• TRS confident of victory, putting all efforts to make it ‘huge’
• BJP leaders aim to dent TRS confidence to gain Centre’s goodwill
• Cong shields star campaigners, claims credit for statehood

The buzz in political circles is that the BJP national leadership was pressurized reportedly by Chandrababu Naidu, Venkaiah Naidu and even Pawan Kalyan to give ticket to Jagga Reddy since they believed he was the only leader in Medak who could take the TRS head-on. BJP zeroing in on Jagga Reddy has led to war of words between the TRS and the saffron party.

• TRS, BJP and Cong leave no stone unturned to see an impressive win
• Harish Rao leads the TRS charge

TRS leaders slammed the BJP for fielding an 'integrationist' like Jagga Reddy in the election. They are appealing to voters to shun the anti-Telangana leader and teach a lesson to the BJP. On the other hand, Jagga Reddy dared the ruling party to speak on development and promises kept so far rather than indulging in personal attacks.