TRS tries to hold its grip

Hyderabad: The stage is set for polling in all the 17 Lok Sabha constituencies in Telangana on Thursday. Over 2.9 crore voters, including 1.47 crore women are eligible to exercise their franchise. As many as 443 candidates are testing the waters.

Having swept the Assembly polls held in December last, the ruling TRS is hoping for an encore in the company of AIMIM while the opposition Congress and BJP appear to be focussed on winning select number of seats. As many as 443 candidates (418 male and 25 female) candidates are in the fray in the 17 constituencies.

Among the key players in the race for Lok Sabha are TPCC chief Uttam Kumar Reddy, A Revanth Reddy and Komatireddy Reddy and Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao's daughter K Kavitha and senior BJP leader G Kishan Reddy, Congress leader Renuka Chowdary and AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi.

All eyes are on the Nizamabad Lok Sabha constituency since it has emerged as a special case in this parliamentary election as 185 candidates, including more than 170 farmers, are in the fray. The peasants have entered the fray to highlight their demand for remunerative price to turmeric and red jowar.

The Election Commission has decided to conduct the poll in Nizamabad with EVMs (12 EVMs in each booth) despite the large number of candidates. Huge number of technical staff were also deployed to Nizamabad to rectify technical snags, if arise, on the polling day. Additional Director-General (Law&Order) Jitender said special arrangements have been made for Nizamabad with additional deployment of four companies of central forces in the constituency.

Over 2 lakh election officials on poll duty in 34,604 polling stations completed their tasks so far. Voters can cast their vote from 7 am to 5 pm. In the identified Maoists-infested segments, the polling time is 7 am to 4 pm only. In all, 77,365 ballot units, 41,051 control units and 43,894 VVPATS are being used in the elections in the state.

Enthused by the landslide victory registered by winning 88 seats out of 119-member strengthen in the state Assembly, the ruling TRS party has targeted to win 16 MP seats and play a key role at the Centre if coalition government is formed.

Congress leadership is struggling hard to win at least five seats and rejuvenate the party which faced a severe drubbing in the just-concluded Assembly elections. The BJP also eyed to win a select number of MP seats mainly Secunderabad and Mahbubnagar Lok Sabha seats from where Kishan Reddy and DK Aruna are fighting the elections respectively.

As many as 145 companies of Central paramilitary forces and 9,000 policemen from other states have been deployed besides over 55,000 state police for security arrangement in all poll-bound Lok Sabha segments, the police official said.