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Mother tongue not enough here

Ravi Reddy
Hyderabad

Candidates typically seek votes by speaking to the electorate in their mother tongue.

But what happens when the voters are a mix of Telugu, Kannada and Marathi? This peculiar situation confronts candidates in the Jukkal (SC) Assembly constituency in Nizamabad district of Andhra Pradesh, where people speak the three languages.

This economically backward constituency is tucked away in a corner of the district bordering Bidar in Karnataka and Nanded in Maharashtra, and Telugu, Kannada and Marathi are widely spoken here. There are also over 100 villages in the constituency where the people speak Kannada or Marathi.

Tri-lingual

Four-time Congress MLA Saudagar Gangaram, a Telugu by birth, is fluent in Kannada and Marathi.

“Most of my voters are illiterate. I have gained a lot of goodwill by speaking to them in their native tongues,” says Mr. Gangaram, whose wife Savitri Bai bagged the Congress ticket this time.

TDP candidate Hanumantha Shinde is a Marathi but is at ease interacting with voters in Telugu and Kannada.

Praja Rajyam Party candidate Aruna Tara, a management graduate who hails from Nizamabad town, is making frantic efforts to learn Kannada and Marathi.

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