Hyderabad: Apparently keeping the ensuing GHMC polls in mind, TD president and AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Wednesday replaced C. Krishna Yadav with Jubilee Hills legislator Maganti Gopinath as Hyderabad district TD chief.
Mr Yadav, nominated one of the vice-presidents of the TS TD committee earlier on in the day, was city party chief for eight months. He had been appointed after the defection of Mr Talasani Srinivasa Yadav to the TRS.
The nomination of Mr Gopinath is seen to have a political purpose. Out of 15 Assembly seats th-at the TD won last year in Telangana, 10 were fr-om Greater Hyderabad.
TD sources said of the 64 lakh voters in the GHMC area, almost 40 lakh are from Hyder-abad, and the rest in Ranga Reddy district. It is believed that more than 40 per cent of the voters are of Seeman-dhra origin. Mr Gopinath, a Hyderabad native, has family links with coastal Andhra.
Kukutpally, Serilinga-mpally, Jubilee Hills, Sa-nathnagar, Secunde-rabad, Malkajagiri and Musheerabad Assembly segments are considered to have considerable presence of voters from different states.
After the bifurcation of undivided AP, the TD was branded by the TRS as a “settlers party”. The TD now appears to be aiming for support from these sections which, it feels, have been targeted by the TRS leadership.
“It is a fact that almost 50 per cent of voters are Marwadis, Gujaratis, Marathis, Kannadigas, Tamils apart from Telugus from the coastal districts of AP. I am considered a Hyderabadi as I'm born here and have been in the TD since 1984 as city TD youth president,” Mr Gopin-ath said when asked about his appointment.
“Every section is being antagonised by the TRS government and this will fetch votes for our combine. I am confident the TD-BJP combine will sweep in the GHMC polls,” he added.
