Karimnagar: Denied the ruling party ticket, Palakurthy ZPTC and BRS leader Kandula Sandhya Rani has deftly utilised the Rakhi festival to win over people to her side in the Ramagundam assembly constituency of Peddapalli district.
Sandhya Rani, who has decided to contest as a rebel candidate, is going around the coal belt area and trying rakhi, particularly leaders of the Singareni employees’ union. Her plea to them is to support her as a sister and help her win the forthcoming assembly election from Ramagundam. Her confidence lies in the fact that voters of Ramagundam have uniquely been changing their sitting MLAs every term.
The voters have even gone on to elect independent candidates against sitting members of the assembly. Incidentally, the current sitting MLA Korakanti Chander Patel had contested the 2018 assembly election as an AIFB (All India Forward Bloc) candidate and won against BRS nominee Somarapu Satyanarayana. Chander Patel later shifted his loyalty to the ruling BRS party.
Sandhya Rani is hoping for the best and making all out efforts to win the election from Ramagundam as a rebel candidate. Tying rakhis to union leaders and others in the coal-belt region is one of her ways she is trying to project herself. Significantly, key Ramagundam BRS leaders, including Sandhya Rani, M. Raji Reddy, P. Yellaiah, K. Lakshmi Narayana and B. Manohar Reddy had as a team opposed the re-nomination of sitting MLA Chander Patel. They even warned the party leadership that they will not support the MLA if he is allotted the ruling party ticket.
The rebels also took up a Praja Ashirwada Yatra and held several meetings against Chander Patel, charging that he is spoiling the image of BRS party by indulging in corruption and frauds, like offering jobs in RFCL (Ramagundam Fertilisers and Chemicals Limited) and collecting money from youth. However, despite their opposition, BRS party chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao has chosen to allot the Ramagundam assembly ticket to the sitting MLA Chander Patel.
