Political Diary

Grand alliance partners - TDP, TRS and the Left parties - are set to fight one another in at least 15 assembly and two Lok Sabha constituencies as most of the candidates fielded from there by the respective parties remained in the fray as the last date for withdrawal of nominations for the first phase of polling on April 16 ended on Thursday evening. While Secunderabad and Warangal are the Lok Sabha seats in which both TDP and TRS candidates are in the fray, the assembly seats where they are clashing include Karwan, Kukatpally, Uppal, Patancheru, Maheshwaram, Suryapet, Sangareddy, Dornakal, Warangal (East), Huzurnagar, Mahbubnagar, Sircilla, Parakala, Bhoopalapalli, Mancherial, Yellareddy, Nizamabad (Urban), Peddapalli, Manthani and Chennur. In Secunderabad LS constituency, which has been allotted to the TRS, TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu painted TRS candidate M D Mohammed Mahmood Ali as a weak one and roped in Srinivasa Sudish Rambhotla as his nominee. Rambhotla told TOI on Thursday evening that there were no instructions from the TDP president to withdraw. The TDP and the TRS are also set to clash in the city assembly constituencies like Karwan, Kukatpally, Uppal and Maheshwaram. In Maheshwaram, which has been allotted to the TRS, the TDP has put up T Krishna Reddy against K Prabhakar Reddy. However, TDP’s Kukatpally nominee P L Srinivas withdrew from the contest on Thursday. Rebel candidate P Vijaya, daughter of former Congress MLA P Janardhan Reddy, was initially said to have backed out of the race from Serilingampally assembly segment, but Rangareddy district officials clarified on Thursday night that she is still in the contest. Mana Party’s Kasani Gyaneshwar, who has an alliance with the Prajarajyam Party, is in the fray from Chevella Lok Sabha constituency as well as for the Qutubullapur assembly seat where he would clash with PRP’s Jeevender Reddy. Similarly, PRP’s Rajpal Reddy and Mana Party’s Md Umar Ali Arshad Shafi are set to take on one another in the Rajendernagar assembly segment. Among the other withdrawals, TDP nominee M N Srinivasa Rao pulled out from Musheerabad assembly constituency where TRS’ Nayani Narasimha Reddy is the official alliance candidate. The TRS withdrew its candidate, Shobhan Babu Mothe, from Secunderabad in favour of TDP’s T Srinivas Yadav and from Yakutpura, it pulled out Md Abdul Salam Sharafan, again in favour of the TDP. In the Congress, rebel candidate V Narayana Reddy pulled out of the race from Malakpet assembly segment. Alliance partners TDP and CPM are clashing in Patancheru and Dornakal assembly constituencies allotted to the CPM while the TRS and CPI are set to clash in Husnabad which has been given to the latter. On its part, the CPM has not pulled out its candidates from Station Ghanpur and Sattenpally which have been given to the TDP. At least 10 rebel TRS candidates remained in the fray including from Manakondur, Alair, Sircilla, Qutubullapur, Wardhannapet, Warangal (West), Parkal, Bhoopalapalli, Manakondur and Ramagundum assembly constituencies. The only TRS rebel candidate who withdrew is M Varalaxmi from Sangareddy. In all, there were 71 withdrawals for the 22 Lok Sabha seats and 660 withdrawals for 154 assembly seats going for the polls in the first phase, leaving 305 LS candidates and 1833 assembly candidates in the fray. With the nomination phase having been over, leaders of the various parties have now embarked on their gruelling campaigns.