Ght in Karimnagar may go down to the wire
from the traditional Congress bastion.
The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) is facing a litmus test in the May 13 Lok Sabha elections since the party’s defeat in the 2023 Assembly elections in December last year.
The BRS elded the former MP B. Vinod Kumar, one of the founding members of the TRS (now BRS), to regain the erstwhile BRS fortress. Mr Vinod had lost to Mr. Sanjay in 2019 election.
The constituency is spread over seven Assembly segments — Karimnagar, Choppadandi, Manakondur, Sircilla, Vemulawada, Husnabad and Huzurabad.
The constituency, a predominantly agricultural region, has major irrigation sources including the Lower and Mid Manair Dams.
Karimnagar is home to
The BJP’s Karimnagar candidate, Bandi Sanjay Kumar, playing cricket with residents.
the historic Sri Rajarajeshwara Swamy temple in Vemulawada and the Elgandal Fort. The Congress has won four Assembly seats and the BRS the remaining three seats in the Karimnagar Lok Sabha constituency in the recent Assembly polls.
The Sircilla Assembly segment in the constituency,
presently represented by BRS working president K.T. Rama Rao, is famous for its powerloom industry.
The powerloom industry in the textile hub of Sircilla is now facing multiple challenges due to a nationwide slump in fabric demand among other factors.
Political heavyweights, including the Congress leaders late J. Chokka Rao and late M. Satyanarayana Rao, BJP’s Ch Vidyasagar Rao, BRS president K. Chandrasekhar Rao, have represented the high-pro
le constituency in the past. Mr. Chokka Rao and Mr. Satyanarayana Rao had won the seat for three successive terms.
Mr. Chandrasekhar Rao had won the seat on the plank of Statehood for Telangana thrice — 2004 and 2006 general elections and 2008 byelection.
The Congress’s Ponnam Prabhakar, now Minister for Transport, represented the constituency from 2009 to 2014.
Mr. Sanjay’s campaign is mainly centred on the plank of the Narendra Modi-led BJP government’s “development and decisive leadership” and its “achievements”, including the inauguration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, with a tirade against the Congress and the BRS.
Congress campaign
Mr. Rajender Rao is spearheading his campaign on the Congress manifesto — ‘paanch nyay’ and ‘guarantees’ as well as the Congress government’s six poll guarantees — while taking the BJP to task for its alleged “divisive politics and misrule” and the former BRS government for allegedly pushing Telangana into a “debt trap”.
Mr. Vinod Kumar’s campaign largely revolves around his contribution to the development of the Karimnagar constituency during his tenure as MP from 2014 to 2019 and highlighting the “imperative need” for the presence of BRS MPs in Parliament.
Forecast for Friday: