No magic of ‘Dalit Bandhu’ In Huzurabad

The counting for Huzurabad by-election is going on and after five rounds of counting, the BJP is clearly ahead with 2169 votes. Even the magic of ‘Dalit Bandhu’ did not work for TRS and is toiling hard to take the lead.

BJP’s Etala received 17,969 votes after fourth round counting while TRS candidate Gellu Srinivas Yadav is trailing with 16,144 votes. The complete details of the fifth round are yet to be out. But the celebrations have commenced at BJP’s office in Hyderabad.

However, the polling trend shows big setbacks for the TRS party. The ruling party pinned huge hopes at various places of the Huzurabad constituency and their expectations turned upside down.

TRS banked heavily on Huzurabad municipality, Veenavanka and Jammikunta. Veenavanka being the birthplace of TRS candidate Gellu and also Padi Kaushik Reddy, TRS hoped to receive a mountain share of votes. And at Singapuram village which is TRS MLA Satish Babu (Husnabad) and TRS Rajya Sabha MP Captain Lakshmikantha Rao’s native place, the BJP displayed dominance.

In order to checkmate Etala at any cost, CM KCR brought ‘Dalit Bandhu’ and in August this welfare scheme was grandly launched at Shaalapalli village. This village and adjacent villages have a majority of Dalit votes and KCR led TRS government eyed their vote bank.

But at Shaalapalli, BJP secured 311 votes while TRS received 182 votes. All these factors suggest that the local issues have worked in favour of BJP and Etala while TRS campaign against rising fuel prices and inflation misfired.