Fresh from winning Secunderabad Cantonment Board (SCB) Assembly constituency for a record fourth time, G. Sayanna clearly does not believe in resting on laurels. Within two days of victory, the senior TDP leader was back on road on Sunday visiting several colonies under SCB to thank the residents for voting for him and enquire about difficulties faced by them in summer.
“We have to merge civilian areas of SCB with the GHMC as this is the only way to ensure development here. Voters in the SCB do remember it was N. Chandrababu Naidu who first mooted this proposal. We have a TDP MP from Malkajgiri and Mr. Naidu has a very good relation with Narendra Modi. We want to push for merger of civilian areas,” he said.
The TDP leader had a hat-trick of victories to his credit from SCB between 1994, 1999, and 2004.
Twice, (1994 and 1999) he defeated Congress candidates D. Narsing Rao and D.B. Devender and the third time in 2004, he defeated Ravula Anjaiah of TRS. Mr. Sayanna could have made it fourth in a row, but lost to Congress leader Shankar Rao in 2009 by 4,183 votes.
This year, however, he bounced back by defeating Gajella Nagesh of TRS by 3,275 votes.
In this polls, Mr. Sayanna had received 44, 693 votes while Mr. Nagesh received 41,418 votes.
“Voters here know me well and trusted me. There are however many challenges,” he said.
Mr. Sayanna has a big ‘to-do’ list. “We are the largest cantonment in India, but don’t have a master plan. Our town planning department is in doldrums and there is a need to bring-in honest SCB board members. We have to provide drinking water to every house in the SCB. We do not get JNNURM funds for development and have no access to funds, and so some areas need to be merged with the GHMC,” Mr. Sayanna said.
The MLA had some tough words for the recent blocking of the AOC roads by the army. “I request army personnel to stop harassing civilians. There is no need for imposing roadblocks, vehicular checks and throwing traffic out of gear. We will take up this issue at the highest level,” he assured.
