Lack of a strong base for TRS across seven Assembly constituencies for the Nalgonda Lok Sabha seat and a weakened TDP due to its unclear stand on bifurcation are likely to make the task of sitting Congress MP Gutha Sukhendar Reddy easy.
The presence of strong Congress leaders in the constituency further makes Mr. Gutha’s job easy because they take care of the cadre on their own. Without any party’s support, Mr. Gutha had won the seat by a huge margin of 1.52 lakh votes in the 2009 elections by defeating grand alliance (TDP, TRS, CPI and CPM) candidate, Suravaram Sudharkar Reddy.
This time, the CPI is an electoral partner and it is bound to benefit Mr. Gutha. The TDP-BJP combine is unlikely to influence the outcome as last time, the BJP nominee polled only 22,000 votes, fighting alone. Though Mr. Gutha’s work in the last five years has not been outstanding, his rapport with people and presence at almost all party and government meetings is expected to work in his favour. The biggest strength of Mr. Gutha is he keeps his distance from group politics, which the Nalgonda Congress is notorious for. Senior Congress leaders Jana Reddy (Nagarjunasagar), Ramreddy Damodar Reddy (Suryapet), N. Uttam Kumar Reddy (Huzurnagar) and Komatireddy Venkat Reddy (Nalgonda) lead groups. However, Mr. Gutha recently had differences with Mr. Komatireddy, but they sorted them out and have been seen working together in the election campaign.
Moreover, the Opposition parties have also failed to find strong candidates to challenge him. After much delay, the TDP moved Tera Chinnapa Reddy from Nagarjunasgar Assembly constituency to Nalgonda Lok Sabha. Moreover, the aspirant of Nalgonda Assembly constituency, Kancharla Bhupal Reddy, has revolted against the opposing party’s move to allot the seat to BJP and remained in the contest as an independent.
