Congress star campaigners busy in own segments in Telangana

Hyderabad: The Congress’ star campaigners for Telangana, who are in electoral fray from Medak, are shying away from campaigning for their party’s candidates in other parts of the region as they are busy in their own constituencies.

The Telangana Congress had originally planned to utilise the services of Medak sitting MP Vijayashanti, senior Congress leaders and former minister J. Geetha Reddy and former deputy chief minister Damodar Raja Narasimha to campaign for the party’s candidates across Telangana.

While Mr Raja Narasimha and Ms Geetha Reddy are said to be in the CM’s race, Ms Vijayashanti is the sole star campaigner available for the Congress in the Telangana region. Ms Vijayashanti has the image of fighting against feudal lords (doralu) in Telangana in her superhit movie Osey Ramulamma, which the TRS had encashed during earlier polls when she was with that party.

However, with Ms Vijayashanti herself struggling to win the Medak Assembly seat against TRS candidate Mr Padma Devender Reddy, she has remained confined to her constituency.

Meanwhile, TRS leader T. Harish Rao is an exception who is not campaigning in his Siddipet constituency but is touring across the region. So confident is Mr Harish Rao about his victory that he is talking about crossing 1 lakh majority this time against his earlier majority of 95,000 votes. He has emerged as the star campaigner for the TRS and even for party chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao in Gajwel and Medak.

Interestingly, Mr Raja Narasimha is the chairman of the Telangana Congress Campaign Committee and he is supposed to campaign for all party candidates in the region in this capacity. However, he has not moved out of his Andhole constituency so far due to a tough fight from Tollywood comedian Babumohan who quit the TD recently and joined the TRS to take on Mr Raja Narasimha, who had defeated him in the 2004 and 2009 elections by narrow margins.

Ms Geetha Reddy on the other hand is facing an uphill task in the Zaheerabad Assembly seat with two strong contenders from the TRS and the TD, Mr Manik Rao and Mr Narotham respectively.