After the debacle in the by-elections to Dubbak assembly seat and Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation elections, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi has taken the forthcoming by-elections to Nagarjunasagar seat very seriously.
The by-elections to Nagarjunasagar is necessitated by the sudden death of sitting TRS MLA Nomula Narasimhaiah, who had defeated veteran Congress leader K Jana Reddy in December 2018 assembly elections.
The Congress party, too, has taken these by-elections prestigiously and in all probability, Jana Reddy himself will fight the by-polls, as he still has considerable hold over the party in Nagarjunasagar.
Even the BJP, though it doesn’t have much base here, is planning to go all out to win the seat.
Initially, there were reports that the TRS leadership decided to field Narasimhaiah’s son Nomula Bharat, as the party candidate in the by-elections.
TRS president and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, who personally consoled the family members of Narasimhaiah, assured to give the party ticket to Bharat.
Apart from sympathy factor of his father, Bharat also has the support of Yadava community which has passed unanimous resolution seeking the TRS ticket to him.
Moreover, he also enjoys the backing of the CPI (M) cadres as his father had served the party for several years before jumping into the TRS.
However, KCR is now said to be in second thoughts in giving the party ticket to Bharat for the simple reason that he is a political novice and is no match to the stature of Jana Reddy both politically and financially.
Apparently, KCR does not want to make the same mistake he had committed in Dubbak, where he fielded deceased MLA Solipeta Ramalinga Reddy’s widow Sujatha hoping to gain mileage from the sympathy factor. But she proved a wrong choice, as people preferred a senior leader like Raghunandan Rao of BJP.
So, the TRS president is learnt to have decided a strong Reddy candidate with a lot of money power. Against this background, the name of Kancharla Chandrasekhar Reddy came up for discussion in the party. He is none other than father-in-law of popular Tollywood hero Allu Arjun, nephew of megastar Chiranjeevi.
Chandrasekhar Reddy, who owns engineering colleges, had unsuccessfully contested on TRS ticket in Ibrahimpatnam constituency in 2014, He lost to Telugu Desam Party candidate Manchireddy Kishan Reddy, who later defected to the TRS.
Incidentally, Nagarjunasagar is the native place of Chandrasekhar Reddy and hence, the TRS leadership is contemplating fielding him from there in the by-elections. Since Kancharla family has a good name in the constituency, he is the better choice than Bharat, who originally hails from Nakirekal, the party sources said.
