BC sentiment did not work in just concluded MLC polls

Chinnamile Anji Reddy secured victory in the Karimnagar-Medak-Nizamabad-Adilabad Graduates constituency, while PRTUTS state president Pingili Sripal Reddy won the Warangal-Khammam-Nalgonda Teachers segment. Malka Komaraiah emerged victorious in the Karimnagar-Medak-Nizamabad-Adilabad Teachers constituency. Despite belonging to the BC community and contesting on a BJP ticket, no other political party fielded candidates for the teachers' segment.

Karimnagar: BC sentiment seems to have not worked out in the recent MLC elections. Despite BC organizations’ strong decision to win the community candidates, other community aspirants won two of the three MLC seats.

While Chinnamile Anji Reddy won Karimnagar-Medak-Nizamabad-Adilabad Graduates constituency, PRTUTS state president Pingili Sripal Reddy captured the Warangal-Khammam-Nalgonda Teachers segment.

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Malka Komaraiah won Karimnagar-Medak-Nizamabad-Adilabad Teachers constituency. Though he is from BC community contested on BJP ticket, no other political party fielded their candidates for teachers segment.

Never before in the past, political parties took MLC polls as a challenge this time around and gave top priority for victory. Some of the candidates started campaigning two to three months before the polls.

However, the campaign, which was going smoothly until then, took a different turn with the release of caste census which showed a decline in the BC population.

BC organizations, which were already unhappy with none of the political parties fielding community leaders in the elections, expressed anger over the decline of the BC population.

Enraged over parties’ negligence attitude towards the community, various BC organizations gave a call to the community voters to teach a befitting lesson to political parties by electing BC leaders in the fray.

Congress party’s own MLC Teenmar Mallanna (Chinthapandu Naveen), who had burnt the copy of caste census, challenged Reddy MLC candidates to “Say no to BC votes and win MLC polls without community votes”.

He appealed to the BC electorates to vote for only BC candidates. Enraged over Mallanna’s comments against their community, Reddy associations lodged complaints against him in different police stations.

On the other hand, BC organizations, during their campaign, highlighted that Reddys, who constitute only five percent of the state’s population, have 43 MLAs and 10 MPs. Even if the community leaders are representing a majority of MLA and MP seats, the political parties again gave MLC tickets to Reddy leaders.

Though it was not clear how far BC electors exercised their votes to their community candidates, Reddy voters were reportedly polarized. Irrespective of political affiliations, Reddys had internally decided that both first and second priority votes should be cast in favor of community candidates only.

Political analysts say that Mallanna’s comments against the Reddy community seemed to have damaged the winning prospects of BSP candidate Prasanna Harikrishna in Karimnagar graduates constituency.

Political leaders and contestant candidates at the counting center believed that Harikrishna, who got 60,419 votes in the first priority votes, might win the poll with second priority votes.

However, he was also eliminated in the counting of second priority votes.