TRS Faces Tough Fight As It Hopes To Retain Kamareddy, Yellareddy

Anvesh Reddy

Back in 2014 elections, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) candidates enjoyed an extensive support from all sections of the society at large, in the context of the long-standing Telangana agitation. Now, it is not the case in many constituencies as the TRS hopes to retain power in the December 7 polls, which was a result of caretaker Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao's (KCR) decision to dissolve the Legislative Assembly on September 6, almost nine months ahead of the general elections in May next year.

As KCR gears up for his marathon public meetings in multiple constituencies starting from Monday, caretaker IT minister K Taraka Rama Rao (KTR) is busy monitoring certain key constituencies which are believed to be the TRS strongholds. Kamareddy and Yellareddy constituencies, which were until the dissolution of the House represented by the TRS, make it to the all-important list. The Congress party, however, is not too far behind in the campaign activity. Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee working president Revanth Reddy, who has a huge mass appeal across the State, attended a massive rally in the constituency last month.

Even as the Congress-led people's front was busy choosing its candidates, KTR rejuvenated the party cadres in both the constituencies late last month. With a voter count of 5,64,268 people as per the October 2018 electoral roll released by the Election Commission, Kamareddy district possesses a peculiar gender classification with 2,89,354 female voters and 2,74,864 male counterparts.

Kamareddy

Constituency-wise, Kamareddy, with an electoral strength of 2,29,345, voted to power TRS candidate Gampa Goverdhan with 71,114 votes, whereas Leader of Opposition in Telangana Legislative Council and senior leader of the Congress party Shabbir Ali missed victory with 62,873 votes in the 2014 assembly elections.

Yellareddy

On the other side, TRS candidate from Yellareddy, Eanugu Ravinder Reddy was in the news for wrong reasons . Within a week from the dissolution of Assembly in September, a video that went viral on social media showed Ravinder Reddy negotiating monetary terms with women self help groups in return for votes in the elections.

In the constituency, which has 1,96,018 voters, 70,760 votes were polled for Ravinder Reddy, while Jajala Surender of the Congress and BJP's Banala Laxman Reddy drew 46,751 and 33,359 votes respectively in 2014 assembly elections .

Watch this space for more updates on Telangana Assembly Elections 2018.

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