Even as internal differences in the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) over the choice of the party’s candidates in Warangal lok Sabha constituency have come to the fore, Congress candidate S Rajaiah on Monday filed his nomination paper at the District Collector’s office at Hanmakonda.
Rajaiah, who came with a large procession of his supporters exuded confidence that the people disillusioned with the TRS Government in the State and the BJP Government at the Center will chose him this time.
Telangana State Congress President Uttam Kumar Reddy also asserted that the Congress will win the by-election with a margin of more than 1,00,000 votes.
Meanwhile, the choice of P Dayakar as TRS candidate has not gone down well with the other aspirants of the ticket. Speculations were rife that there were differences even at the higher level as P Dayakar was the choice of K Taraka Rama Rao, son of the Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao at the cost of E Srinivas, who was recommended by T Harish Rao, nephew of the Chief Minister.
Both Taraka Rama Rao and T Harish Rao are senior Ministers in the State and are seen as heading rival factions.
P Dayakar also has the support of the deputy Chief Minister Kadiam Srihari as both of them belong to the same Madiga sub caste of scheduled castes.
Though another important SC leader of the party and the former Deputy Chief Minister T Rajaiah was also supporting Dayakar, he was unhappy with Kadiam Srihari.
T Rajaiah’s supporters allege that Kadiam Srihari was responsible for the sacking of T Rajaiah as Deputy Chief Minister to take his place.
These differences came to the fore when the two groups hurled abuses at each other during the campaign preparation meeting.
Similarly of the 15 other aspirants of the TRS ticket, four or five were still unhappy forcing the Chief Minister to intervene and placate them with promises of accommodation in future.
Taraka Rama Rao himself was already active in Warangal and was holding meetings with the local leaders and workers to ensure unity.
But TRS was also facing challenges on the other front as some of the mass organizstions of Telangana movement have decided to support Congress candidate in by-elections.
Uttam Kumar Reddy told the reporters that the Osmania University Students Joint Action Committee and the Telangana State Joint Action Committee have promised their support to Congress candidate. “The students want to teach a lesson to the TRS government for its failure in fulfilling promises of Government jobs and releasing scholarships and mess charges”, he said.
While the TRS and the Congress candidates have taken their positions and actively started campaigning, the TDP and BJP alliance was yet to finalise its candidate. The leaders of the two parties were continuing their discussions but a unanimous name was eluding them. An NRI doctor Devaiah was most likely to be the BJP candidate.