T. Harish Rao, Irrigation Minister in the caretaker government, has been investing his focus on two key constituencies – Andol and Sangareddy, in view of strong contenders from the Congress like Mr. C. Damodar Rajanarasimha and Mr. Jayaprakash Reddy.
Shifting loyalties
At Andol, former Deputy Chief Minister C. Damodar Rajanarasimha had unsuccessfully contested on the Congress ticket. He was defeated by a margin of 3,291 votes at the hands of TRS candidate P. Babumohan, in the previous elections. However, now that Mr. Babumohan has shifted his loyalties to BJP, a journalist, Chanti Kranti Kiran, was allotted the seat from here by the TRS leadership. The leadership justified the allocation of ticket, saying it sought ‘local’ leaders instead of Mr. Babumohan. However, why the TRS leaders chose a local leader for this particular constituency alone and not other places is best known to them.
As part of the strategy, Mr. Harish saw to it that important followers of Mr. Damodar like S. Jaganmohan Reddy, former ZPTC member Tara Bai, her husband and former sarpanch, Tekmal mandal parishad president Anjamma and some others joined the party. Zaheerabad Lok Sabha member B.B. Patil has been reportedly extending the required assistance to Mr. Kranti.
Community connect
At Sangareddy, Sumangali Shekhar, former sarpanch of Pothireddypally shifted allegiance to the TRS and got inducted into the party recently at Hyderabad. The idea is to address the Vaishya community for which Topaji Ananta Kishan, a follower of Mr. Jayaprakash Reddy, has already become a public face of the Congress.
