As Huzurabad bypoll campaign heats up with the nominations filed, the poll outcome will not be a test to the calibre of the candidates or the political parties alone but also the image of the chiefs of all the three political parties – K. Chandrashekhar Rao of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), Bandi Sanjay of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and A. Revanth Reddy of the Congress.
The last two face their first election in different aspects after assuming charge as chiefs of their State units. Huzurabad falls under the Karimnagar Lok Sabha constituency represented by the aggressive Mr Sanjay and it will be a test to prove his strength in his constituency for the first time after he was elected.
The BJP saw a huge takeoff soon after he got into the new role, winning the Dubbaka bypoll, and also stunning the ruling party in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) elections winning the highest divisions in its history. The Hindutva campaign narrative in the GHMC elections was set by him and the TRS was in a predicament either to reject it or follow it or continue its initial slogan of development politics. Much before the ruling party could create a counter-strategy religious emotions took over. The AIMIM, a friendly party of the TRS, also contributed in upping the emotions, ultimately favouring the BJP.
But Huzurabad is a different turf and realising that religious emotions cannot be raked up in this rural constituency that easily, he has been targetting corruption in the government. Mr. Sanjay has just ended his walkathon with a massive public meeting in his Karimnagar constituency and is seen as a prelude to the bypoll. He can relax a bit as the election is being seen as a fight between Mr. Rajender and KCR and not the BJP and TRS.
For the equally aggressive Revanth Reddy this is the first election after taking over as Telangana Congress chief overcoming the challenges from seniors in the party. He has been successful in energising the party workers who were demoralised after a series of defections of MLAs to the ruling party. The ‘Dalita Girijana Dandora’ meetings created the much-needed buzz for the party and by conducting the last meeting in Gajwel, represented by the Chief Minister, he has sent a strong signal to the party workers that he is willing to fight.
Neither the party high command nor the Congress workers are expecting a win here as the Huzurabad seat in the last two decades was never its kitty, but getting decent votes will help the party in the long run. By fielding a youngster and its student wing president Venkat Balamoori, the party has played it safe. Mr. Reddy’s leadership may not be judged with the outcome here though his detractors in the party will rake up the issue.
But in Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s case, the fight is not limited to his party winning but decimating his long-time party colleague and trusted lieutenant, and now BJP candidate Eatala Rajender, who has questioned his leadership and ‘iron-hand politics’. A win with a massive majority only will satisfy KCR and nothing less than that.
A master political strategist, he has already deployed an army of his party leaders and Ministers to hit Mr. Rajender psychologically, weaning away his closest followers from him. Launching the ‘Dalita Bandhu’ scheme from Huzurabad as a pilot project will be seen as a master political stroke as well distracting the earlier focus of the bypoll campaign.
Winning with a huge margin here will suppress any thought of dissidence in the TRS and that KCR’s leadership cannot be questioned in Telangana. The other two, even if they lose, can fall on some excuses that can be bought by people.
