Congress to field Sircilla Rajaiah

TPCC chief Uttam Kumar Reddy appeals to students and youth to take a lead in defeating TRS candidate

Hyderabad: The Congress on Saturday announced its candidate for upcoming Warangal Lok Sabha bypoll. After several days of deliberations, it has zeroed in on former MP Sircilla Rajaiah.

On Saturday afternoon, AICC general secretary and MP Janardan Dwivedi informed the media through a press release that the party had decided to field Rajaiah as its candidate for the byelection to be held on November 21.

Rajaiah who was an agriculture office rose to become the Deputy Commissioner at Commissioner of Panchayat Raj and Rural Employment. Later, after serving with various NGOs, he joined politics and won the 2009 general elections with 3,96,568 votes, a majority of more than 1 lakh against the TRS candidate. Subsequently, he lost to Kadiyam Srihari (TRS), with a margin of 3,96,000 votes during 2014 general elections, after separate Telangana was formed.

Rajaiah, who is camping in the city expressed optimism that he would again win with huge majority, as there was an anti-incumbency wave running among the people. Describing this as a challenge to all those who fought for Telangana, he said all the forces which fought for achieving Telangana would back him in the elections.

Over allegations of misconduct during his earlier term, the leader explained that being a novice, he might have done some mistakes knowingly or unknowingly as an MP, but brought development to Warangal. He referred to road development connecting Hyderabad (Yadagirigutta) to Warangal with Rs 1,486 crore, fund allocation to various other projects and push for SC and ST sub-plan as his achievements during the period. “It was during my time, Rs 150 crore was allocated for Kakatiya Medical College which was completely under neglected condition. The ailing tourism industry in the district got boost through allocation of several crores of rupees to archaeology department for restoring historic structures in Warangal,” he explained.

Meanwhile, TPCC president N Uttam Kumar Reddy called upon the YSRCP and Left parties to put a united fight against the TRS, for ensuring its candidate is defeated in Warangal Lok Sabha byelection. In this endeavour, the party leadership would try to rope in the leaders for seeking cooperation.

Speaking to media persons here at Gandhi Bhavan, Uttam Kumar described the government under K Chandrashekar Rao as undemocratic and oppressive. Hence to teach a lesson all the political parties and social organisations should put a unified fight. Students and unemployed youth should come forward and take a lead in this direction. This was the right time for farmers to send a message to the government by casting their votes against the government, he added. He demanded that the Centre take up inquiry into allegations being faced by Chandrashekar Rao, while he was the Union Minister in the UPA government.