In a setback to the image of ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) as a united and strong party, party president and care taker Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s scheduled election meeting in party’s fortress Warangal could not be held on Sunday evening as per schedule.
Not happy with the group rivalries and dissidence in the district unit the Chief Minister cancelled his election meeting without any formal announcement. This was to be fourth in his series of district wise election meetings.
In a district, which was the bedrock of the separate Telangana state movement and where TRS had won 10 of 11 assembly seats in 2014, the rebellion in the party ranks has created an embarrassing situation for the party leadership.
Though KCR re-nominated sitting MLAs in all but one constituencies, party workers have rebelled at many places demanding change of candidates. In Warangal East where the party did not nominate its sitting MLA Konda Surekha and she walked out in a huff and joined Congress TRS was already on a weak turf. Konda factor was looking like affecting the TRS’ chances in at least three other constituencies in the district.
If this was not enough serious differences have cropped in many other constituencies. While the party re-nominated sitting MLA Rajaiah in Station Ghanpur constituency, deputy Chief Minister Kadiam Srihari was aspiring for the ticket from there was it was his home town. “He wants the party to nominate him or give ticket to his daughter Kavya”, party sources said.
There were serious problems in senior leader E Dayakar Rao’s constituency Palakurthy and speaker Mahusudhan Chary’s constituency Bhoopalapally. A section of the party was opposing their re-nomination. Dayakar Rao was elected last time on TDP ticket and later switched his loyalties to the TDP. Local TRS leaders want that the one of them should get the ticket.
KCR had released the first list of candidates on September 6 and a month later the problem of dissidence was persisting despite his best efforts to bring around all the groups.