Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) working president K. T. Rama Rao has observed that results of the recent Lok Sabha elections in the State have presented a peculiar trend as the party has won only nine seats against 11 in 2014 although the party’s vote share has increased to over 40% from 34% last time.
In a free wheeling chat with news persons here on Tuesday Mr. Rama Rao said there were different reasons for Lok Sabha election results in the State and the party would take up an in-depth review of its performance after the completion of MLC polls in Local Authorities quota. He, however, exuded confidence that TRS would achieve good and expected results in the MPTC and ZPTC elections by winning a lion’s share of the seats.
Asked whether he was feeling let down as working president of the party following poor showing in the Lok Sabha polls, he said he was not thinking on those lines as the votes polled by TRS in the elections had come down only by four lakhs compared to the Assembly elections held in December last. In Sircilla, BJP had polled about 50,000 votes this time against only 3,000 in the Assembly elections. Similarly, TRS majority in Siddipet segment had come down compared to December polls, he pointed out.
Kavitha’s defeat
The TRS working president blamed the defeat of his younger sister K. Kavitha in Nizamabad on the collusion of the BJP and the Congress and not because of 93 turmeric farmers entering the fray and securing about 94,000 votes between them. “We know that those who contested in the name of farmers were political activists and we also know that their nomination papers were readied in the residence of a Congress leader of Jagtial Assembly constituency,” he claimed.
Stating that he and Ms. Kavitha had seen several ups and downs in their political journey so far Mr. Rama Rao said one defeat would not cow down their spirit. “Rahul Gandhi has suffered defeat in Amethi. Does it mean that he will confine himself to his home and ask his party workers the same,” he shot back when asked about the impact of the Nizamabad result.
On the argument that TRS president and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s “hindu gaallu bondu gallu” comment during his campaigning at Karimnagar had helped BJP gain support in the State Mr. Rama Rao said BJP had won across the country and no there were no such comments. He denied the allegation that former minister T. Harish Rao was kept aside in the party and was limited to only Medak Parliament seat.
