Hyderabad: Kaman is but one of the parliamentary constituencies of Telangana, and it has become the most prestigious after the state congress. The leadership passed resolutions urging Sonia Gandhi, later Rahul Gandhi and finally Priyanka Gandhi to contest from here.
But not a single seat is occupied by a person with that surname. After accepting the proposal, the seat became highest demand in Telangana having three strong minister People from this place tried to get tickets for their kin but they were dejected by Congress’ high command as trio requested for it.
All eyes are on Khammam when Telangana’s 17 Lok Sabha seats go to polls on May 13. Excellent! The grand old party has fielded R Raghuram Reddy, whereas BRS has nominated sitting MP Nama Nageswara Rao and the BJP, looking to expand its presence here, has given ticket to Tandra Vinod Rao.
The seat has generated a lot of political heat with three ministers including deputy chief minister Bharti Wickramalkar standing firm in their bid to get their family’s ticket. Even Telangana Congress president and chief minister A Revanth Reddy and other cabinet ministers tried their best to ask Sonia for Rahul or Priyanka Priyanka) as a fallback option so as not to create any problem with any of the three ministers.
Among these ministers, Bharti belongs to the SC community, Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivas belongs to Reddy and Agriculture Minister Tummala Nageswara Rao belongs to Kamma, a community that controls economic and political levers of this constituency and district.
Initially state Congress tried sending a Gandhi family member for the seat but it eventually turned out be very difficult finding one. Both party and CM Revanth want to consolidate their position after winning 64 parliamentary seats which is four more than simple majority required for government formation. The Congress won six of the seven assembly seats in Khammam where its pre-poll ally CPI won the Kottagudem seat, its only contestant in next year’s assembly elections.
Even though the first batch of four candidates for Telangana was announced by high command, it took over a month before finalizing candidate(s) for this seat resulting into Name of R Raghuram Reddy being declared just with one last day remaining for nominations. This happened after calling Bhatt Vikramarka and Ponguleti Srinivas in Bengaluru, where AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge mediated between them after having a phone call with Agriculture Minister Tummala Nageswara Rao to resolve the issue.
All the three ministers assured the party leadership that they would work for the candidate finalized by the high command. Raghuram is a son of Ramasaham Surender Reddy, an ex Congress member who was close to Nehru-Gandhi family. Raghuram’s son married D Venkatesh’s daughter from Kamma community Aashritha and his second son married Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy’s daughter. The grand old party relies on Raghuram’s Reddy-Kamma connection and winning all seven assembly segments as well as support from CPI and even CPM to win this seat last held in 2004. A lot since Ponguleti won this seat in 2014 on YSRCP ticket, later joined BRS and now in Congress.
Although it could not win any single seat in this assembly constituency, BRS is confident that it will retain Khammam because it won this constituency during last year’s election after having taken just one out of seven seats in state polls 2018.
On the other hand, BJP is spreading its wings with top leaders like Home Minister Amit Shah addressing public meetings in this particular constituency. Confident of opening account in Khamm, BJP leader says LS election is a different ball game and Modi’s magic, Ayodhya’s Ram temple and ‘twin engine sarkar’ will play a role in deciding candidate’s fate Play a role.
