Huzurabad: TRS confident of bypoll victory

Huzurabad: With the campaign for the Huzurabad byelection ends on Wednesday evening, the TRS has pressed all the buttons to ensure the victory of its candidate Gellu Srinivas Yadav. Though publicly the party leaders claim that they would win the seat as the wind was in their favour, they are keeping their fingers crossed. Internally, they feel that booth management on the day of polling will be the key for winning.

The party utilised all possible forums to woo the voters. Starting from the announcement of Dalit Bandhu scheme to adopting of important resolutions demanding categorisation of SCs, increase in reservations for the STs and minorities at the just-concluded plenary launching sharp attack on the rival BJP, the pink party used all the cards up its sleeves to win the polls. Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao even alleged that the Election Commission of India had crossed its limits by preventing him from holding a public meeting.

This remark has led to the Opposition parties criticising the government. They said the TRS government had been preventing them even from visiting the project sites but when they were stopped by the ECI as per the election guidelines, they were crying foul.

Finance Minister T Harish Rao led the poll campaign as effectively as he could and succeeded in blunting the BJP moves to a great extent. He has created an atmosphere where people feel that it cannot be a cakewalk for the BJP's Eatala Rajender. The fight is going to be neck and neck.TRS leaders are of the opinion that the deliberations at the plenary had helped them in carrying their message to the voters. By raising the demand for a caste census of the BCs by the Centre, the TRS tries to garner the support of the BCs as well.

The TRS alleges that the BJP and Congress were against the interests of BCs and hence were not insisting on BC census. On the other hand, the BC organisation, led by R Krishnaiah, is supporting the TRS candidate.