Once Bitten, Twice Not Shy! : 15 netas flunked in Assembly poll test enter LS ballot battle

Hyderabad: The upcoming Lok Sabha elections will witness an interesting trend in the State with at least 16 noted politicians entering election battle twice in a span of four months.

These leaders contested the recently concluded State Assembly elections and are now testing their luck in the parliament polls.

All the three main political parties (Congress, TRS and BJP) have fielded their strong candidates with Congress contributing a bulk of them (ten candidates).

However, except for N Uttam Kumar Reddy, the remaining contestants were defeated by their opponents. Uttam Kumar Reddy, who was elected as Congress MLA from Huzurnagar assembly is in fray from Nalgonda Lok Sabha seat.

After the big setback in assembly polls, Congress high command has roped in its key and top leaders from Telangana Congress and gave them party tickets.

This list includes A Revanth Reddy (Malkajgiri), Komatireddy Venkat Reddy (Nalgonda), P Balram Naik (Mahabubabad), Ponnam Prabhakar (Karimnagar), Mallu Ravi (Nagarkurnool), Ramesh Rathod (Adilabad), C Vamshichand Reddy (Mahbubnagar), A Chandrashekar (Peddapalli), Feroz Khan (Hyderabad) and TPCC chief N Uttam Kumar Reddy (Nalgonda Lok Sabha).

Except for Uttam, the other nine Congress candidates tasted defeat in the hands of their opponents, mostly from the TRS.

Revanth lost from Kodangal assembly constituency, Komatireddy from Nalgonda, Balram Naik from Mahabubabad, Ponnam from Karimnagar, Mallu Ravi from Jadcherla, Ramesh Rathod from Khanapur, Vamshichand Reddy from Kalwakurthy, Feroz Khan from Nampally and A Chandrashekar (from Vikarabad), who contested as All India Forward bloc candidate at that time as Congress gave B-form to Former Minister G Prasad Kumar.

BJP fielded four candidates who also contested assembly elections, a few of them in other parties, but have shifted loyalties to the saffron party ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.

G Kishan Reddy (Secunderabad Lok Sabha), D K Aruna (Mahbubnagar), Bandi Sanjay (Karimnagar) and Soyam Bapu Rao (Adilabad). G Kishan Reddy and Bandi Sanjay contested as BJP candidates from Amberpet assembly and Karimnagar assembly segments respectively but lost to TRS opponents.

D K Aruna and Soyam Bapu Rao were in Congress during assembly elections period and they contested from Gadwal and Boath constituencies respectively. They joined BJP and are now in fray for Lok Sabha polls.

TRS has also fielded two candidates Nama Nageswara Rao (Khammam) and Nethakani Venkatesh (Peddapalli) for the April 11 election. However, both of them were in other parties-Nama in TDP and Venkatesh in Congress, until recently before they switched over to TRS and got TRS B-forms for Lok Sabha elections.

Interestingly, Nama and Venkatesh lost to their TRS opponents in Khammam and Chennur segments in the recent assembly elections.

The TRS is highlighting this fact more in their electioneering. Minister G Jagadish Reddy wanted to know how Congress hopes to stop the TRS winning juggernaut in the State.

"A majority of these candidates received a drubbing at the hands of TRS opponents in recent assembly elections.

If they failed to win the confidence of voters in assembly elections, how could they hope to change their fortunes in the following Lok Sabha elections? TRS is going to prevail over all these candidates once again," he stressed.