The erstwhile Adilabad district encompasses 10 of the 119 Assembly constituencies and accounts for 18,89,254 electors of the total electorate of the 2,73,18,603 in Telangana State, which is 71,252 voters less than 19,60,506 electors in 2014. The 10 constituencies are spread over a geographical area of 16,000 sq km divided into the districts of Kumram Bheem Asifabad, Mancherial, Nirmal and the residual Adilabad.
The voters in the district had supported different parties at different times. For example, it was Congress which had fared well in elections prior to 1983.
The advent of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in 1983 saw the voters in a majority of constituencies siding with it until the 2004 election when as many as six candidates of that party won the election. The TRS entered as a serious contender only in 2009 but got the support of voters in a big way in 2014 election.
Reserved constituencies
The Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes account for nearly 20% of the population of over 28 lakh, according to the 2011 Census. In tune with their population in given constituencies, three of the 10 constituencies are reserved for STs and two for SCs.
KB Asifabad encloses Sirpur and Asifabad (ST) constituencies, Mancherial has Chennur (SC), Mancherial and Bellampally (SC), Nirmal district has the jurisdiction over Nirmal, Mudhole and Khanapur (ST) though the last has part of its areas in Mancherial and Adilabad district. Residual Adilabad encompasses Adilabad and Boath (ST) constituencies.
First elections
When the first election was held in Hyderabad State in 1951, Adilabad had only Nirmal, Adilabad, Asifabad, Sirpur and Luxettipet constituencies. In due course the number of constituencies rose to 10.
In the 2014 election, the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) had wrested power from the Congress by winning seven of the seats while two were won by Bahujan Samaj Party and one by Congress. The BSP and Congress candidates, however, subsequently joined the TRS which had formed the government.
Koneru Konappa and A. Indrakaran Reddy were the winning BSP candidates from Sirpur and Nirmal constituencies respectively. They won over their TRS rivals Kaveti Sammaiah and K. Srihari Rao with margins of 8,837 votes and 8,497 votes respectively and Mr. Reddy went on to become Endowments minister in the State Cabinet.
In Adilabad constituency, Jogu Ramanna of the TRS had won over Payal Shankar of Bharatiya Janata Party in the last election by a margin of 14,711 votes, that being a hat trick win for him as he had won the 2009 election on Telugu Desam Party ticket and the 2012 byelection as a TRS nominee. This win earned him a berth in the Cabinet and he was made Forest minister.
Third timer
In Chennur (SC), Nallala Odelu of TRS had also won, for the third time in a row, over Congress party’s Gaddam Vinod by a margin of 26,164 votes. He went on to serve as Government whip in the last Assembly.
Bellampally (SC) had returned Durgam Chinnaiah, a first timer on TRS ticket, as Gunda Mallesh of Communist Party of India faced defeat trailing by a whopping 52,528 votes while electors of Mancherial constituency ensured victory for N. Diwakar Rao over G. Aravind Reddy of Congress with a margin of 59,250 votes separating them.
Kova Laxmi, also a former Congress leader who had jumped onto the TRS bandwagon, had dislodged Congress party’s Athram Sakku at Asifabad (ST) constituency in the last election polling 19,055 votes more than her rival while Ajmera Rekha of the same party had defeated Ritesh Rathod of TDP by 38,511 votes at Khanapur (ST). The third seat reserved for ST candidates, Boath, also went to TRS with Rathod Bapu Rao winning by a margin of 26,993 votes over Soyam Bapu Rao of TDP.
Mudhole constituency returned Congress party’s G. Vittal Reddy over BJP’s P. Rama Devi. He won the election by a margin of 14,837.
