In the byelections to the Paleru Assembly seat in Khammam district, the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) is eyeing another chance to further bolster its strength in the House.
Determined to wrest the seat from the main Opposition Congress in the byelection scheduled for May 16, the TRS announced the name of Minister for Road and Buildings Tummala Nageshwara Rao as its candidate from Paleru.
Tummala is a very strong and influential leader from Khammam district who served as a senior Minister in the Telugu Desam Government in the past and joined the TRS after the formation of Telangana State.
Paleru seat fell vacant due to the passing away of senior Congress legislator R Venkat Reddy recently. Chief Minister and TRS president K Chandrasekhar Rao zeroed on the name of Tummala Nageshwara Rao after a discussion with the party leaders. Most of the leaders were of the view that Tummala had a very good chance of winning the seat for the party.
KCR also decided to nominate his son and senior Minister K Taraka Rama Rao as in charge of the election in Paleru. He earlier successfully looked after the party’s campaign in the elections to the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, Warangal and Khammam Municipal Corporations.
KTR exuded confidence that the TRS will bag the Paleru assembly constituency. “The results of Khammam Corporation will be repeated in Paleru as they were not different from each other”, he said.
The Congress on the other hand was likely to field Suchartia Reddy as its candidate while name of Sudarshan was doing rounds as the candidate of CPIM.