Puvvada kick starts poll campaign in Khammam
Khammam: Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) has started its campaigning for Khammam Municipal Corporation (KMC) elections on a grand note here on Monday.
Transport Minister Puvvada Ajay Kumar launched the campaign after offering prayers at Ayyappa Swamy Temple at Srinivasa Nagar here. He conducted election rallies in different areas in the city along with the party candidates.
He urged the voters to support the TRS in the elections for the development of Khammam. The city has been competing in development with metro cities. With the State government’s support the city has already witnessed tremendous progress in the past six years, he said.
The past rulers have neglected Khammam development but the Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao and MA&UD Minister K T Rama Rao were paying special attention to Khammam development by allotting huge amounts of funds.
Every nook and corner in the city was getting a facelift with CC roads, side drains. Recently the daily supply of Mission Bhagiratha water supply to households in the city was started. The voters have to compare the present and past situations in terms of development before casting their vote, he said.
Modernisation of Gollapadu channel, which was pending for decades, was resolved. Lakaram tank which was once a stinking water body has been developed into a tourist attraction with walking tracks, parks and open gyms, he explained.
Ajay Kumar appealed to the voters to reject the opposition parties that lacked development agenda and never cared to address the problems of the residents in Khammam city. He wanted the voters to elect TRS candidates with a huge majority in the KMC elections.
Earlier in the day, the Minister interacting with the media persons expressed confidence that the TRS was going to win the municipal elections with a bumper majority as the voters were fully aware of the development the city witnessed in recent times.
The Minister said opposition parties were only interested in criticising every good being done by the government instead of giving quality suggestions for the development of Khammam. He accused opposition parties of obstructing development works.
Congress was a gone case and there was no presence of BJP in Khammam, Ajay Kumar said adding that the crux of the TRS campaign would be development. Replying to a question he said his wife Vasantha Lakshmi was not in the mayor race.
ZP Chairman L Kamalrak, SUDA Chairman B Vijay Kumar, MLC B Lakshminarayana and others were present.
KMC polls: Nine nominations rejected, 415 valid
Municipal election observer Ahmed Nadeem, along with District Collector RV Karnan, Municipal Commissioner Anurag Jayanthi and the ZP CEO Ch Priyanka, visited the SR&BGNR College where arrangements were election distribution and reception centre is being set up. The officials inspected the Zilla Parishad meeting hall and monitored scrutiny of nominations. After the scrutiny of nominations, 415 nominations were found valid out of 522 nominations filed for the KMC polls. Nine nominations were rejected.
In all, a total of 404 candidates have filed their nominations for 60 municipal divisions. A total of 101 candidates of TRS, 108 candidates of Congress, 69 of BJP, 31 of CPI (M) and nine candidates of CPI have filed their nominations, besides others. Collector Karnan explained the arrangements being made for the corporation elections which would be held on April 30. Entire election officials and staff were directed to wear face masks, maintain social distance and to follow the Covid-19 guidelines during the election duty, he said.
