In Dubbak, woman voters call the shots

HYDERABAD: All major political parties and independents are vying with one another to capture the women voter base and beedi workers, many of whom are women, in Dubbak constituency.
Leading the TRS campaign, state finance minister Harish Rao recently addressed a rally of women in the constituency. BJP and Congress too roped in women leaders to campaign for their candidates.The reason being that Dubbak constituency has more number of women voters than men. Of a total of 1,98,807 voters, 1,00,779 are women and 98,026 are men.

Dubbak consists of Dubbak, Mirdoddi, Thoguta, Doultabad, Raipol, Chegunta, Narsingi and Gajwel mandals and in all the mandals, women voters outnumber men. For instance, Dubbak mandal has 55,208 voters, of whom 27,983 are women and 27,725 are men.
For the ruling TRS, former deputy speaker Padma Devender Reddy and former minister Sunitha Lakhma Reddy are the driving force, campaigning for party candidate Solipeta Sujatha. BJP’s M Raghunandan Rao has party national vice-president DK Aruna and other women campaigning for him vigorously. Congress party’s lone woman MLA Anasuya alias Sitakka is touring Dubbak segment in support of party nominee Cheruku Srinivas Reddy.
All the parties have deputed women leaders to speak to self-help group women in rural areas where leaders of these groups have a considerable influence. The leaders hold regular meeting with SHG women leaders, seeking support for their candidates.
Not to be left behind, local women sarpanches, mandal parishad territorial constituency women leaders are also campaigning for their parties’ candidates.
Interestingly, this is the first time that two women are contesting the electiont. Even when the constituency was Dommata (before the reorganisation of constituencies), there were no women candidates. This time, TV anchor K Karthika is contesting as All India Forward Block candidate along with Sujatha from TRS.