In KCR’s stronghold, voters are divided over his performance
GAJWEL (TELANGANA): As one turns right at Pragnapur village, off the state highway around 65 kilometres from Hyderabad, the small town of Gajwel looms into view.
Wide four-laned roads lined with trees and a central median equipped with LED street lighting and colourful plantation greet the visitor. A short distance away is a 100-bed government hospital with state-of-the-art facilities that are hard to find even in bigger institutions across the state.
Then, there is an air-conditioned integrated market yard, a virtual supermarket for farmers to directly sell their produce without involving middlemen, and a massive integrated government office complex.Down the road is a big educational hub comprising schools, colleges, hostels and a 1200-seater auditorium. Next to it is a plush cultural centre. Gajwel, a town in Siddipet district, was not always like this but has changed rapidly after 2014 when CM K Chandrasekhar Rao won the election from the constituency, say some local people. “About a decade ago, it was grossly neglected area and a hotbed of Naxalites. There was hardly any proper road into the town and its surrounding villages,” recalls B Kishan, a shopkeeper.
Many locals say they have reaped the benefits of living in a VIP constituency because officials have focused on welfare programmes, especially on housing, pensions and drinking water.
“My pension has gone up from ~ 200 to ~ 1,000 per month in the last four years and it is being credited to my account every month regularly,” said 68-year old Narasanna. KCR, as the CM is popularly known, has many supporters in the town who insist the December 7 election will see a thumping win for the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS)leader. The TRS is looking to come back to power in the state’s second assembly election.
But people in the more interior, rural regions of the constituency say Gajwel’s development has limited itself to the urban and that agricultural distress in particular is a problem. “The actual problems still remain – unemployment, farmers’ suicides due to crop loss and above all, the plight of people who are going to be displaced due to construction of Mallannasagar and Konda Pochamma reservoir,” says Lakshma Reddy, a young man.
The government says it has paid ~ 6 lakh per acre as compensation and is planning to shift them to Mutrajpalli near Gajwel. “But the market value of the land in Mutrajpalli is more than ~ 1.5 crore per acre. How do we survive?” asked Kanakaiah.
Another complaint some people have is that KCR has grown less accessible. Some locals said that KCR has not even campaigned in the constituency and his nephew, irrigation minister T Harish Rao, has been entrusted with the task of campaigning in Gajwel.
“There is no need for KCR to campaign for himself. The development is there for all to experience and people will vote for him with majority,” said Harish.
In 2014, KCR defeated the Telugu Desam Party candidate Vanteru Pratap Reddy a margin of 19,366 votes while Congress candidate T Narsa Reddy ended up in the third position. Gajwel has 227,000 voters.