TRS Announces Candidate for Huzurnagar Bypoll as Infighting Erupts in Telangana Congress

Hyderabad: Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) president, K Chandrashekar Rao, on Saturday finalised S Saidi Reddy as the party candidate to contest bypoll from the Huzurnagar assembly seat.

Congress is yet to announce its candidate as it mired in a fresh controversy to finalise a name to contest the bypolls.

A feud cropped up between the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) chief, Uttam Kumar Reddy, and Telangana Congress working president, Revanth Reddy, as both leaders prefer their own candidates. While Uttam Reddy wants to field his wife and former MLA, Padmavathi Reddy, Revanth Reddy wants to rope in party spokesman, Kiran Kumar Reddy.

Instead of finalising the candidate, the congress has made its job rather tough as persistent infighting is giving an advantage to the ruling party.

Bypolls to 64 assembly seats and one Lok Sabha constituency spread across 17 states will be held on October 21 and the counting of votes will be on October 24, the Election Commission announced earlier on Saturday.

After getting a nod from the Telangana Chief Minister, TRS working president and IT Minister, KT Rama Rao, announced the name of S Saidi Reddy, who unsuccessfully contested from the Huzurnagar constituency in the previous assembly polls as well.

The bypoll is necessitated as the incumbent MLA from the Huzurnagar seat, TPCC Chief Uttam Kumar Reddy, won the Nalgonda Lok Sabha constituency in the 2019 general elections and resigned from his MLA post.

Revanth Reddy surprised everyone by appealing to the All India Congress Committee (AICC) to serve a show cause notice to Uttam Reddy for taking a unilateral decision to field his wife. It is believed that Revanth Reddy is unhappy that AICC did not offer him the post of TPCC chief.

Revanth Reddy’s candidature as TPCC chief was opposed by Uttam Reddy, Bhongir MP Komatireddy Venkat and Telangana AICC secretary, V Hanmantha Rao.

TRS leader and state Power minister, G Jagadish Reddy, exuded confidence that the TRS will win the bypolls easily.

The BJP is yet to announce its candidate.