After municipal and mandal parishad chairpersons’ elections, the Telangana Rashtra Samiti and the Telugu Desam Party have swept the zilla parishad chairpersons elections in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh respectively.
Of the nine districts, Telangana Rashtra Samiti bagged the zilla parishad chairpersons posts in six districts of Adilabad, Nizamabad, Karimnagar, Medak, Mahbubnagar and Warangal. The Congress suffered a setback in Warangal where it had a majority but the cross voting by its members led to the victory of TRS candidate Padma. Congress won Nalgonda zilla parishad chief post.
In Ranga Reddy district, the election was postponed due to the lack of quorum and in Khammam election could not be held as the state High Court has issued a stay order in view of transfer of seven mandals of districts to neighboring State of Andhra Pradesh.
In Ranga Reddy, where no party has a clear majority, behind the scene efforts were on to woo the support by TRS and the Telugu Desam Party.
In Andhra Pradesh, of the 13 districts, Telugu Desam Party swept 10 and the YSRCP could bag only Kadapa zilla parishad chief post. The elections were marred by violence and tension in Nellore and Prakasham districts. Tension erupted in Nellore when the TDP managed to woo a zilla parishad member of YSRCP to secure a majority. This led to a clash between the MlAs of the two parties forcing the election authority to postpone the elections.
A similar situation led to postponing of the election of the Chairperson of Prakasham zilla parishad. The trouble broke out during the meeting at the Zilla Parishad Bhavan in Ongole when YSRCP MlA Ravi Kumar allegedly attacked the TDP MlA D Janardhan and angry TDP workers rushed in to the meeting hall. Situation further aggravated after police made a lathicharge to disperse the TDP supporters. When the situation did not come under control district collector Vijayakumar announced the postponing elections.
Meanwhile, senior TRS leader and Minister for legislative Affairs T Harish Rao said that some of the zilla parishad members had joined TRS for the sake of development of “Golden Telangana”. He said that the TRS had swept the elections in the State.
At the same time he alleged an “unholy nexus” between Congress and TDP in some places for the sake of power and posts. “Congress leader K Jana Reddy should explain why he had joined hands with N Chandrababu Naidu though he was spewing venom against Telangana. Similarly what was the need for the TDP to join hands with Congress when Naidu never tires of talking of anti Congressism”, he wondered.
In Warangal the elections were marred by tension when the Congress leaders tried to prevent their members form indulging in cross voting in support of TRS.