NIZAMABAD: The municipal elections have become a challenge for the TRS leadership in Nizamabad now that their chief K Kavitha is no longer in the picture.
TRS president and Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao had handed over the responsibility of winning the ULB seats to the Ministers and MLAs in the district. Previously, the same responsibility was on Kavitha’s shoulders. In fact, she had managed to get the TRS candidate elected as the Nizamabad Mayor despite the party having very few corporators in the previous polls.
After Kavitha’s Parliamentary poll debacle, Kavitha became inaccessible to the district leadership. She stopped participating in programmes organised by the TRS.
That being said, the ground below the TRS is shaky in Nizamabad. After its failure in the Parliamentary polls, it was faced with another challenge: the ZPTC and MPTC elections. Though the party won the Zilla Parishad, the Congress party received the highest number of votes. This shows that the TRS leadership has been unable to put a stopper to Congress popularity in the district.
Nizamabad district has one municipal corporation and three municipalities. Kamareddy, on the other hand, has three municipalities. Excluding Banswada — which is Speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy’s bastion — the TRS leadership will have to give special attention to all parts of the district.
The BJP, owing to the popularity of MP Arvind Dharmapuri, has a good chance of winning the Mayor and Municipal Chairman posts. The Congress, meanwhile, is confident that it would get all the Muslim votes. Now that the TRS isn’t contesting in alliance with the MIM, the latter party has also begun its effort to win the elections. What does this leave TRS with?
Several TRS leaders in the district opined that the party would have a better chance at the polls in Nizamabad if Kavitha diverted her attention to the municipal elections.