Poor turnout in strongholds worries leaders

HYDERABAD: Just a week away from the polling date for the first phase of elections, leaders of the Congress and the Grand Alliance are back to the drawing boards trying to figure out as to why in some of their strongholds the crowds are not coming for the meetings and whether this does not augur well for them.
For instance, there were no crowds in the case of chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy's first meeting at Chevella and TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu's kick-off campaign at Medchal and Serlingampally.Sources said the CM had pulled up the district party officials after noticing a poor turnout in his Adilabad meetings, a district considered Congress stronghold.
For TRS president K Chandrasekhar Rao, the meetings addressed by him at Shadnagar and Nagarkurnool town turned out to be flops in terms of the number of people who turned up. Analysing the trend, the parties' leadership are now wondering whether the choice of `weak' candidates from some of the strongholds could be the reason for the poor turnouts and whether this would sound the death knell for their candidates in the hustings.
Congress sources said the party is facing an uphill task in the Miryalguda, Kodad and Suryapet assembly seats and in the Nalgonda Lok Sabha seat because of the bad selection of candidates. KCR is said to be worried at the electoral success of his son K Tarakrama Rao from Sircilla assembly seat as the candidate had to face hostile crowds during his public meetings.
Similarly, in the TDP, the choice of candidates in Gadwal, Naryanpet assembly and Kurnool Lok Sabha seats is causing worry for the party despite all of them being party strongholds.
One section of the leadership however dismiss the fears of defeat in these seats on the grounds that crowds are not indicative of the mood at the electorate of that constituency and that the supports would turn out in large numbers on the voting day and ensure victory for them. However, one has to wait for the results to find out whether the worries were genuine or baseless as some section of the leaders think.