Hyderabad: The message is loud and clear – people want development, on the ground, to be seen and felt. The resounding victory of the TRS in Nagarjuna Sagar Assembly bypoll has established beyond doubt the ruling party’s credibility among the people of the State. The decimation of Congress and BJP also affirms that false promises and divisive politics will not cut ice with the Telangana electorate any more.
Nomula Bhagat Kumar, son of TRS MLA late Nomula Narasimhaiah whose sudden demise in December last necessitated the bypoll on April 17, came up trumps against Congress stalwart K Jana Reddy with an impressive margin of 18,448 votes.
While the Congress has been struggling hard to keep itself afloat in Telangana’s political mosaic without much success, the BJP has been aggressively trying to position itself as an alternative to the TRS ever since it tasted success in Dubbak Assembly by-election last year. The saffron party has since been crying hoarse that Telangana’s future was in its hands, but then it did not reckon with the people’s power that TRS has in its arsenal.
There was even talk in BJP circles that the Nagarjuna Sagar bypoll would be a referendum of sorts for the TRS government. The ruling party, fresh from its triumph in the two Graduate MLC elections, however, put paid to any hope that BJP may have nurtured with the drubbing it handed out to the saffron party in the Sagar by-poll.
Be that as it may, the fact is that the TRS government had the most important factors on its side – pulling out erstwhile Nalgonda district from abysmal depths of underdevelopment and welfare of the people. Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao ensured that not only was the district rid of the decades-old dreaded fluorosis issue by supplying safe drinking water through Mission Bhagiratha, but also made sure that the district developed on all fronts in a matter of just six years.
The development on the agrarian front through various irrigation projects including the mega Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme has to be seen to be believed, so much so that Nalgonda is now vying for the top spot in agriculture produce. And there are more irrigation projects in the pipeline which the Chief Minister has promised to complete within a year and a half.
The district has also witnessed rapid infrastructure development and new educational institutions including a medical college coming up in the past six years besides upgradation of tribal tandas into gram panchayats.
Jana Reddy and the Congress just couldn’t counter the development and welfare agenda of the TRS, and had nothing to say about the party’s contribution to the development of the constituency which Jana Reddy represented seven times (including four from then Chelakurthi Assembly constituency).
As for the BJP, the party lost the battle even before it started with its candidate Dr Pangogothu Ravi entering the electoral fray reluctantly. The BJP campaign was focused more around personal allegations against the TRS leadership with no concrete assurance on how the party intended to develop the constituency.
That, in a nutshell, was the TRS’ script for victory in the Nagarjuna Sagar bypoll.