Dubbak bypoll: Dubbaka falls silent after fiery campaign

Dubbak bypoll: The hectic political activity witnessed in the Dubbaka Assembly constituency in Telangana for the past three months has come to an end. The microphones have fallen silent, leaders have retreated and the administration has made all-out efforts to ensure smooth polling on Tuesday.

The campaign ended on both the TRS and BJP firing salvos against each other. The ruling party accused the BJP of hatching a "dirty plan, to resort to dharna either at Pragathi Bhavan or TRS Bhavan and create a situation where the police may be forced to open fire. The BJP wants to get sympathy by resorting to such cheap tricks, TRS president KT Rama Rao alleged on Sunday. TRS leaders even met the DGP at Hyderabad and submitted a memorandum to him asking the police to act tough against those who indulge in such activities. They also met the Chief Electoral Officer.

The TRS made this allegation soon after a BJP activist by name Srinivas attempted to kill himself by pouring petrol over his body in front of Party's state headquarters. He took the extreme step in protest against the recent arrest of the BJP state president Bandi Sanjay Kumar by police. Party workers and onlookers poured water on him and doused the fire. He was rushed to Osmania General Hospital. Later he was shifted to a private hospital for better treatment.

In Dubbaka, Finance Minister T Harish Rao, who had taken the responsibility of leading the party campaign, asked the state BJP president to reply to his letter of 18 questions about how the Centre cheated Telangana. He said the parents of BJP candidate were beneficiaries of government schemes like Rs 2016 pension, free power, 12-kg rice, Rs 5000 per acre. Raghunandan's family gets a benefit of Rs 8 lakh from the government. Still they have the cheek to make false charges, he said.

At the end of the campaign, the ground situation is that while the youth were unhappy that the government had failed to create job opportunities, farmers were happy with government schemes like Rhythu Bheema, Rhythu Bandhu, incentives for a girl child, ambulance facility and KCR kit. On the other hand, Raghunandan Rao signed off the campaign alleging that the government had adopted all possible means to harass them.

He said they had enacted the drama of searches at his father-in-law's house in Siddipet on Dasara day and alleged that Rs 40 lakh seized by police on ORR near Shamirpet recently belonged to BJP. Displaying photographs of those arrested, he said that they were TRS activists as seen in the photographs, garlanding TRS leaders at a function sometime back. He said the last attempt was made on Sunday evening by KTR who alleged that Rs 1 crore seized from Visakha industries was meant for distribution in Dubbaka. However, Deputy Commissioner of Police P Radhakrishna Rao said they had arrested two persons, T Ravi Kumar car driver and Surabhi Srinivas Rao who is the brother-in-law of BJP candidate Raghunandan Rao. He said Srinivas Rao runs a technical manpower supply business known as A to Z solutions company.