Mahabubabad voters face conundrum: Whom to vote

Hyderabad: Mahabubabad voters are facing a conundrum. The three main candidates have all tasted succcess before from this constituency and are now up against one another.Maloth Kavitha of BRS is sitting MP and contesting again in the May 13 polls. Azmeera Seetaram Naik, who won on a BRS ticket in 2014, is now a candidate of BJP this time. Senior Congress MP Balram Naik, who won as an MP from this seat in 2009, is back as a Congress nominee in this election. Political observers said voters will indeed be at their wits’ end, having to take a call on whom to vote since all the three candidates whom they had voted to victory in the last three general elections are again seeking the mandate. “It’s a curious case of all eggs in one basket. The voters will have a lot of thinking to do before pressing the button on the EVM on the D-day,” an observer said. Seetaram recently switched his loyalties to the BJP, which swiftly announced him as its candidate. After winning in 2009, Balram was unsuccessful in the last two elections in 2014 and 2019 and came as a runner-up. But, he is testing his luck once again this time.Mahabubabad ST reserved seat was under spotlight at the national level when Balram was inducted into Manmohan Singh-led UPA cabinet in 2012 as a Union minister of state. In fact, it was the last time when Congress won the seat in 2009. The BJP has never won this seat and the BRS has been winning it since the formation of Telangana state. However, the Congress is confident this time as it has won six of the seven assembly segments falling under this Lok Sabha constituency in the Nov 2023 assembly elections. BRS candidate Tellam Venkat Rao, who won the lone seat of Bhadrachalam, is also in Congress camp now having joined the party recently, giving major boost to the grand old party’s electoral prospects in Mahabubabad.The Congress had lost all the five reserved constituencies in 2019 general election with BRS winning four of them—Mahabubabad (ST), Peddapalli (SC), Nagarkurnool (SC) and Warangal (SC), while the BJP had won Adilabad (ST) seat. The sitting MPs of BRS from Peddapalli and Warangal have joined the Congress, while Nagarkurnool sitting MP P Ramulu quit the BRS and joined the BJP. His son is in fray from Nagarkurnool on a BJP ticket now.
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