Fight not yet over for Nagarkurnool ZP chief

Nagarkurnool: Amid two groups fighting for the prestigious Zilla Parishad chairman post, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi elected Peddapally Padmavathi as the Zilla Parishad chief of the Nagarkurnool district on Saturday.

However, other members of the party, especially Potuganti Bharat Kumar, who lobbied hard for the post, is leaving no stone unturned to unseat Padmavathi by making her ineligible to hold the post by bringing up the issue of Padmavathi having three children.

It can be recalled that the TRS party was able to win all Zilla Parishad chief posts of erstwhile Mahbubnagar district. While selecting the ZP chiefs for Mahbubnagar, Narayanpet, Wanaparthy and Gadwal was a cake walk, the selection of chairman for the Nagarkurnool Zilla Parishad was a tough task with two contenders putting out a tough fight.

The main reason why the nomination of Padmavathi is under threat because of her having three children. Though it may sound absurd, it is true. According to rules of the Election Commission of India, a person cannot contest to become a people's representative in the local body if they have three children.

As a result, the nomination of Padmavathi is under threat as the warring group of Bharat Kumar has filed a complaint with the election returning official and Nagarkurnool District Collector and urged him to disqualify her candidature as she does not qualify for the post of Zilla Parishad chairperson.

Padmavathi had won as ZPTC member from Telkapally mandal. If the District Collector disqualifies her candidature going by the rules, then she will have to lose not only the ZP chairperson post but also the ZPTC post.

While Padmavathi had maintained that she had three children in two births, that is she had given birth to twins in her first pregnancy and a single child in the second. However, the rival groups are not relenting and alleging that her claims are false.

A few are also questioning about her educational qualification. As Padmavathi had claimed to have studied up to Class 10, a few are saying that she had not even completed her Class 9.

"ZP chairman's post is a cabinet rank post and a person with good educational qualification and sound knowledge should be given preference," opined a few TRS party members from Nagarkurnool.

In view of the above, some TRS members are supporting the candidature of Bharat Kumar as he is well-educated with a bachelor's degree in engineering and a master's degree in business management.

Meanwhile, a few TRS workers are of the view that as Bharat Kumar's father, P Ramulu, is already a Member of Parliament, the TRS high command did not want to promote dynastic politics in Nagarkurnool and because of which, the party had chosen Padmavathi to the Zilla Parishad's top post.