Campaigning relentlessly over the last three weeks, Congress candidate N. Padmavathi Reddy says Huzurnagar byelection will be a litmus test for the politics of development and sincerity against the ruling party’s tactics to sabotage the electoral process and secure a win by hook or crook.
Ms. Padmavathi, wife of PCC president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, is in the fray from Huzurnagar, where a byelection is necessitated after Mr. Reddy got elected as an MP from Nalgonda in the recent Lok Sabha elections, and resigned his Assembly seat.
An architect from JNTU, Hyderabad, Ms. Reddy has been a seasoned politician being in the electoral politics for the last 25 years. The former Kodad MLA lost narrowly in the 2018 Assembly elections which she attributes to the ‘tampering’ of electronic voting machines by the ruling TRS. This time also, Ms. Reddy says she is fighting a terrible election.
“The TRS bought over systematically our grass root leaders to create a scare among our cadre. TRS ministers and MLAs are camping in the constituency to lure voters and win them over either by inducements or by intimidation. Their vehicles carrying cash, even infiltrated our campaign vehicles, but none checked their vehicles strangely. Yet, I believe voters are with us and our cadre is intact,” she said speaking to The Hindu .
People had been voting over the years as per their conscience in this constituency and going by the work done by the Congress MLA so far. Mr. Uttam Kumar Reddy scored a hat-trick, thanks to the development work done by us — be it road connectivity, drinking water, electricity sub-stations.
“We hope the EVMs will not be tampered unlike in the 2018 Assembly election when the ruling party realised the shift in the voters’ mood in favour of Congress,” she said.
Asked her response to the TRS leaders jibe that while the Congress fielded its candidate against Telangana martyr Srikantha Chary’s mother in the last election, she said the Congress campaigned for its candidate but never tried to sabotage the chances of the martyr’s mother.
TRS on the other hand is using its official machinery, police as well as money power to sabotage Congress candidate’s winning prospects. This is the difference,” she pointed out.
