Huzurabad all set to go for bypoll today

Huzurabad is all set to go for bypoll on Saturday. The fate of the contenders in one of the keenest electoral battles in recent history will be sealed literally in the ballot boxes by Saturday evening and the outcome will be known only on November 2.

While the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) candidate Gellu Srinivas Yadav is confident of creating history as a ‘giant killer’ by defeating the BJP nominee Eatala Rajendar, a political veteran, the BJP camp appeared to be fighting for the attention of voters. That the BJP camp was diffident was evident on Friday when they failed to rake up a controversy over the BJP candidate not being allowed to address a press conference in Huzurabad. But the efforts only ended in vain, with authorities making it clear that it was the Election Commission guideline that all parties would have to adhere to.

Then came the second failed drama after the close aide of Rajendar shooting off a message on WhatsApp in a group asking his comrades to examine whether they should start a misinformation campaign



about State Government stopping Rytu Bandhu financial assistance to farmers cultivating paddy. 

The message, which was posted in the wrong group and deleted within seconds, did not escape the attention of the TRS leadership. Within minutes, Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy called the bluff and laid it out threadbare the Goebbelsian propaganda scheme, at a press conference.

Huzurabad constituency has an electorate of 2.37 lakh voters and consists of mandals of Illadakunta, Veenavanka, Kamalapuram, Huzurabad and Jammikunta. More than 20 companies of paramilitary force have been deployed to ensure free and fair polling in the Huzurabad Assembly segment, bypolls to which were necessitated with the resignation of Eatala Rajendar from the Assembly after he was embroiled in a huge controversy over his questionable acquisition of lands in Hyderabad. Soon after his resignation which preceded his sacking from the Cabinet, Rajender switched his loyalties to the BJP.