Danam's Keep-All-Guessing Game May Force Congress Re-Think on Candidate
The contestant will have a tough time because, after spending crores of rupees, he or she will be in power for hardly two years and there is no guarantee of a re-nomination in the 2028 general elections.
Hyderabad:The game being played by former Khairatabad MLA Danam Nagender to keep everyone guessing may force the Congress leadership to look for alternatives, even as announcement of the Bharata Rashtra Samithi and Bharatiya Janata Party candidates is said to be a mere formality.
The bypoll to the Khairatabad Assembly segment is now certain, but is likely to be held only next year, making the ruling party’s nominee more vulnerable to the high expenditures in the run-up for the polling that is marked by the festival season. Expressing his readiness to go to the electorate again, Nagender, however, remained non-committal on which party ticket he would seek the mandate.
Speaking to mediapersons, Nagender said the court had permitted him to contest again and he would seek a fresh mandate. “I am ready for election and will announce on which party ticket I will contest at an appropriate time,” he said and refused to comment on the BRS. “I have not decided and do not want to comment at this stage,” Nagender told Deccan Chronicle later in the evening.
The Congress leadership, however, dismissed Nagender’s keep-everyone-guessing game and hinted at looking for alternatives, if need be. Nagender indeed sought to play a similar game after the High Court verdict disqualifying him. He told mediapersons that he would not challenge the High Court order and instead face the electorate. The Congress was of the view that Nagender was not keen to make the first move but finally engaged senior counsel Mukul Rohtagi to file the appeal in the apex court while Speaker G. Prasad Kumar engaged senior counsel S. Niranjan Reddy.
“The contestant will have a tough time because, after spending crores of rupees, he or she will be in power for hardly two years and there is no guarantee of a re-nomination in the 2028 general elections. If re-nominated, they have to spend again,” a Congress leader said, adding that the core issue in the ruling party was who would bear the expenditure – the party or the candidate. According to sources, the party leadership was of the view that it could as well experiment with a new face if expenditure was borne entirely by the party and secure a win in the triangular contest with anti-incumbency vote getting split between the BJP and the BRS.
In the BRS, the candidature of Talasani Sai Kiran Yadav, son of veteran political force in the city Srinivas Yadav, is almost finalised though party MLC Dasoju Sravan conveyed his intention to contest. Sai Kiran made an unsuccessful attempt as the party’s Secunderabad Lok Sabha candidate in 2024. “It is more of reserving the seat for 2028 than winning it now,” pointed out a BRS leader. Former MLA from Khairatabad Chintala Ramachandra Reddy, who won in alliance with the TD in 2014, would be the BJP’s candidate, according to party sources.
