Contesting 2 seats, KCR faces stiff poll battle — Telangana Congress chief Revanth, ex-aide Eatala

Hyderabad: Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) founder and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao (KCR), who is aiming for a hat-trick term in the poll-bound state, is facing a stiff challenge in both assembly constituencies — Kamareddy and Gajwel — from where he has announced his candidature.

The Congress declared Monday that its state chief Revanth Reddy would take on KCR in Kamareddy.

In Gajwel, KCR is facing a showdown with his one-time lieutenant and former BRS minister Eatala Rajender, who is the BJP candidate. Rajender is also the BJP’s election management committee chairman.

The CM, BRS sources said, will file his nominations from both seats on 9 November.

Notably, both Reddy and Rajender are in the poll fray from their respective strongholds too — Eatala in Huzurabad, from where he has won multiple times, including in the 2021 bypoll as a BJP candidate. Revanth Monday filed his nomination papers from Kodangal, a seat he won twice (2009 and 2014) as a Telugu Desam Party (TDP) candidate but lost to the BRS in 2018 as the Congress candidate.

Reddy, the sitting Lok Sabha MP from Malkajgiri, had joined the Congress in 2017 and became the Telangana unit chief in 2021.

Telangana votes on 30 November.

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Congress & CPI clinch deal

The Congress’s third list for the Telangana polls was released Monday with 16 names, including two changes considering local feedback, after the party clinched a poll deal with the Communist Party of India (CPI).

The Left party has been allocated the Kothagudem constituency in the Khammam region, with a promise that it would be given two MLC seats if the Congress came to power in Telangana.

“Our aim is to free Telangana from KCR’s rule. K. Kavitha was not arrested as part of a pact between the BRS and the BJP,” said CPI national secretary K Narayana during the announcement made in Hyderabad in the presence of Revanth.

Narayana was referring to KCR’s daughter and BRS legislator Kavitha’s alleged involvement in the Delhi excise policy scam and her subsequent questioning by the Central Bureau of Investigation and Enforcement Directorate.

The CPI was part of the grand alliance (Praja-Kutami or People’s Alliance) that the Congress had formed with the TDP and Telangana Jana Samithi (TJS) for the 2018 state polls. The TJS, led by professor M Kodandaram, has this time extended support to the Congress, without itself contesting in any segment.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M) was not part of the 2018 Praja-Kutami. After failed negotiations with the Congress this time, which was reportedly offering it the same deal it gave to the CPI, the CPI(M) announced its first list of 14 candidates for Telangana Sunday.

In the 2018 Telangana polls, both Left parties had failed to win any seats.

The TDP is sitting out the polls, while YS Sharmila’s YSRTP has announced support to the Congress.

More desertions likely from BJP

The narrative of a “secret understanding” between the BJP and BRS, as publicised by the Congress, is troubling the BJP, which has been facing debacles in the form of dissent and desertions in its Telangana unit, especially after the high command removed Karimnagar MP Bandi Sanjay from the post of state president this July.

“Why would I fight KCR in Gajwel if there is any such understanding between the BJP and BRS? It was the BRS which allied with the Congress in the past,” Eatala Rajender told reporters Monday, in an apparent reference to the 2004 polls.

After Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy, former Munugode MLA, quit the BJP last month, pointing to inaction in Kavitha’s matter, former MP G Vivekanand too left the party to rejoin the Congress.

Rajagopal has joined the Congress and has been announced as its candidate from the same segment (Munugode) he lost to the BRS in the 2022 bypoll. Vivekanand has been accommodated from Chennur (SC reserved) seat in the Congress list released Monday night.

Vivekanand, earlier the Congress MP from Peddapalli, was the Telangana BJP’s 2023 poll manifesto committee chairman. He was associated with the BRS too in between.

Some more leaders, party sources said, are expected to desert the BJP, which is struggling with internal strife.

The name of “lady superstar”-turned-politician M Vijayashanthi, who has been expressing displeasure with the party leadership, did not figure in the BJP star campaigners’ list released Monday. However, a late night statement from Telangana BJP said that unit chief Kishan Reddy has included Vijayashanthi as a star campaigner.

(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)

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