Assembly elections: TRS gears up to go with full force against Congress
Hyderabad: TRS president and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao rushed to Delhi on Sunday for health check-ups before setting out to launch a full-fledged poll campaign in the first week of November. He is expected to announce the final list of candidates on November 3. Mr Rao will undergo eye and dental check-ups in the Capital before taking up full-fledged campaigning after Diwali. The canvassing it will go on till December 5.
The TRS announced 105 candidates out of the 119 seats in the state on September 6, immediately after dissolving the Assembly. Mr Rao announced two more candidates at a public meeting later.
The Congress is to announce its list in the first week of November, and the TRS chief may make changes after analysing it. The party expects several Congress aspirants who were denied tickets to join it on November 2.
TRS sources said Mr Rao had shortlisted names for the pending 12 seats. These include Malkajgiri MP C.Malla Reddy for Medchal, Mayor N. Narender, Basavaraju Saraiah or Gundu Sudharani for Warangal East, Danam Nagender, Manne Govardhan Reddy, corporators Vijaya Reddy, Vijayalaxmi for Khairatabad.
The party has shortlisted Nandakishore Vyas and Prem Singh Rathod for Goshamahal, Kaleru Venkatesh, Edla Sudhakar Reddy and C. Krishna Yadav for Amberpet.
The contenders for the Musheerabad seat are Muta Gopal and corporator Srinivas Reddy. For Vikarabad, the contenders are T. Anand and N. Anand. SC leader Ravishankar and former minister G. Vinod are in the race for the Choppadandi seat.
The Malkajgiri seat is seeing a race between Mynampally Hanumantha Rao and corporator Vijayashanthi. NRIs Saidi Reddy and Appi Reddy are being considered for the Huzurnagar seat. Kodad will see a toss-up between Chandar Rao and Shashidhar Reddy, while P. Sadanand, Dipankar and Srikanth are vying for the Charminar Assembly seat.
One candidate from among these probables will be announced for each seat on November 3.
Mr Rao plans to hold district-level meetings in Warangal, Khammam and Karimnagar in the first week of November, which will be followed by Assembly constituency-wise meetings.
He plans to cover 100 constituencies in 40 days. Mr Rao held a meeting with senior party leaders on Sunday to devise the campaigning strategy.
Sources said Mr Rao had approved the joining of leaders from other parties in the first week of November to give a fitting reply to the Congress, which recently admitted MLC Ramulu Naik and prominent TRS leader in CM's home constituency Gajwel N. Narasa Reddy into its fold.
Mr Rao feels that once the Prajakutami seat adjustments are finalised and candidates lists of the Congress, TD, TJS and the CPI are out in the first week of November, there would be a revolt among aspirants wjho were denied tickets, and they would defect to the TRS.
