Hyderabad: The decision of the YSR Congress to support the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) in Kukatpally Assembly constituency has taken a new turn.
The followers of the YSRC, particularly the Reddy community of Rayalaseema which has settled in Kukatpally, have decided to support the TRS against the Telugu Desam candidate Nandamuri Suhasini.
The TRS candidate from Kukatpally, Madhavaram Krishna Rao, belongs to the Velama community and the TD candidate, Nandamuri Suhasini, belongs to the Kamma community.
In the Kukatpally Assembly constituency, the Velama population is just 3,000 and the Kamma population is 13,000. The Reddys are about 22,000. The dominant community is Kapu, at about 64,000, and Muslims are 61,000.
In a pamphlet issued by YSRC chief Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, he said that his party’s target is to defeat the Mahakutami. If the TRS comes to power, it will help the YSRC to come to power in Andhra Pradesh and Jagan Mohan Reddy will become Chief Minister.
The YSRC has also appealed to voters in the Seemandhra region of Kukatpally to thus vote for the TRS and to defeat the Mahakutami.
Asked why they are supporting the TRS, Katika Srinivasa Reddy, a voter from Kukatpally, said, “We are living peacefully, The TRS government has taken up several welfare schemes and is developing the state on all fronts so we will support the TRS.”
Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan is also against the TD and has become a severe critic of AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu. He belongs to the majority community in Kukatpally Assembly constituency, the Kapus.
But there is no unity among the Kapus and the Kapu vote will be split between the TRS and TD candidates.
The thinking of Seemandhra Muslims is different from Telangana Muslims. Generally in Muslims majority votes poll one side Generally Muslims vote for one party, but in Kukatpally, there will be a split between some will vote for the TRS and some for the TD. This is because TD chief Naidu is openly fighting with the BJP, while there is speculation that the TRS and the BJP have an internal tie-up, and the BJP is anathema to Muslims. The Majlis-e-Ittihadul Muslimeen’s (MIM) influence on Muslim voters in Kukatpally is less, and so Muslims may veer towards the TRS because TS CM has implemented several welfare programmes for Muslims, as the voter quoted above acknowledged.
Apart from this, the YSRC has taken a firm decision to defeat the TD candidate, which has created an interesting situation. The TRS’s Kukatpally candidate, Madhavaram Krishna Rao, contested from the TD in the previous elections and won; later he joined the TRS.
