Hyderabad: The TRS on Sunday rewarded ‘turncoats’ with MLC seats. TRS chief and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao announced the list of TRS candidates for the MLC elections from the MLAs’ quota and Governor’s quota.
Going by the majority the TRS enjoys in Legislative Assembly, it is a foregone conclusion that all the three MLC seats in MLAs’ quota will be won by the TRS. For the MLAs’ quota, the TRS announced candidature of V. Gangadhar Goud, Alimineti Krishna Reddy and Mynampalli Hanumantha Rao.
V. Gangadhar Goud
While Mr Goud is a TD MLC who defected to the TRS, Mr Hanumantha Rao is a TD leader who switched sides to the Congress just before the 2014 elections, and then, within days, contested for the Malkajgiri Lok Sabha seat on a TRS ticket after the Congress denied him the Malkajgiri Assembly seat.
He lost the election to the TD-BJP candidate Ch. Malla Reddy ironically, who defected to the TRS later. Mr Hanumantha Rao was later made TRS Greater Hyderabad president and still holds the post.
Alimineti Krishna Reddy is the only candidate in MLAs quota who has been with the TRS since its inception. Even in Governor’s quota, both the candidates announced by TRS — Farooq Hussain and D. Rajeshwar Rao — were Congress MLCs before defecting to the TRS.
Election notification was issued for seven MLC seats, of which three are in MLAs quota, one seat each for the Teachers and Local Body constituencies. The TRS has already supported the candidature of MIM’s Syed Amin-ul-Hasan Jafri for the Local Bodies seat, and for Katepalli Janardhan Reddy for the Teachers’ quota seat.
With this, of the seven seats, two have been given to the Reddy community, while Christians, Velamas and BCs got one each. Earlier in the day, there was high drama in TRS circles with rumours of the MLC seat being offered to Congress Lok Sabha MP from Nalgonda Gutta Sukhender Reddy, who defected to TRS.
There was a buzz that the CM has decided to settle “political scores” with the Congress, especially its bigwigs, by forcing a bypoll in Nalgonda, to be vacated by Mr Reddy, and ensure victory for TRS.
This, TRS sources said, would have pushed Leader of Opposition K. Jana Reddy, TPPC chief N. Uttam Kumar Reddy and the Komatireddy brothers, known to be vocal critics of the CM, into defensive position ahead of the 2019 elections, as the constituencies of all these leaders fall under Nalgonda Lok Sabha seat.
However, after lengthy deliberations, it was decided not to take such a risk at this juncture as any unexpected electoral defeat would weaken the TRS and strengthen the Opposition in the run-up to 2019 elections.
