Enthusiasm among people and competitive spirit of the aspirants exhibited during the filing of nomination papers in Telangana has rekindled the hopes of YSR Congress Party in the region.
Notwithstanding the party leadership’s initial confidence on the party’s prospects in the region, hopes began to fade out as leaders started deserting the party one after another in the run-up to the filing of nominations. “The report of a survey during the last week of March which gave over 140 seats to the party in Seemandhra has dampened the spirit of leaders as it gave only 1-3 seats in Telangana,” a party leader from Telangana said.
Perhaps, that was the reason why the party had plans to contest 45-55 Assembly and 5-8 Lok Sabha seats in Telangana initially.
However, the party leadership’s confidence soared as the number of aspirants swelled during the exercise of nominations. “It has encouraged the leadership to announce 81 candidates for Assembly and 13 contestants for Lok Sabha in one go,” sources in YSR Congress stated.
Ultimately, 104 candidates filed their nominations paper for Assembly seats in Telangana on behalf of YSRCP and the party issued B-forms to all of them later. Irrespective of goof-ups made by some candidates which resulted in rejection of their papers, nearly 100 of them are left in the fray.
“We are confident of winning a handful of seats in Khammam, Ranga Reddy, Hyderabad, Nalgonda and Mahabubnagar districts. Rival parties, particularly those wedded to the cause of Telangana, thought that people will hesitate even to support the YSRCP aspirants while filing nomination papers. However, they were proved wrong when turnout of supporters swelled beyond our expectations at many places”, a senior leader from Mahabubnagar district explained.
“Success of our candidates largely hinges on how they can cope with the rivals’ campaign to dub us as anti-Telangana and how we convince the voters with the welfare and development schemes implemented by late Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy for the poor”, a party leader from Rayalaseema stated.
