HYDERABAD: In what is a desperate attempt at getting back into the good books of chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, former minister
Tummala Nageswara Rao
who lost in the
December 2018 assembly polls
shocked voters during campaigning for the party’s Khammam Lok Sabha candidate with his utterances.
“If the TRS candidate loses even this time, even dogs will not care about you,” Tummala Nageswara Rao said in an emotional speech during electioneering on March 28, campaigning alongside the party’s nominee
Nama Nageswara Rao
and TRS party general secretary Palla Rajeshwara Reddy. That Palla Rajeshwara Reddy was himself surprised at the utterances of Thummala could be gauged from the way he kept his gaze on him while he spoke.
“I am unable to show my face to KCR. I have never faced such insult in my life because of the debacle in the last elections. I will get back my honour only if you vote for the TRS candidate. Otherwise, even dogs will not bother about you,” he commented.
Tummala Nageswara Rao was roads and buildings minister in the previous TRS government. However, in the 2018 December assembly polls, he lost to
K Upendar Rao
of the Congress. “The votes you cast last time went down the drain in dirty water,” Thummala said addressing voters during the road show on March 28.
Such was the debacle of the TRS in the assembly polls that it won only one out of 10 seats in Khammam thought it came back to power in Telangana.
“We should have won 10 out of 10. After I joined the TRS, I got people from the TDP, Congress and other parties to join the TRS and took them along with me. I gave them responsibilities. The outcome of the polls was insulting to me. In my decades of public life, this was the first time that I felt so insulted,” he said.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, YSRCP candidate P Srinivas Reddy won the Khammam seat. He later defected to the TRS. With the dismal performance of the TRS in Khammam, TRS president and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao chose not to field Srinivas Reddy again. Nama Nageshwara Rao of the TDP was welcomed into the party and fielded as TRS candidate.
Sushil Rao is Editor-Special Reports, at The Times of India, Hyde...
Read MoreSushil Rao is Editor-Special Reports, at The Times of India, Hyderabad. He began his journalism career at the age of 20 in 1988. He is a gold medalist in journalism from the Department of Communication and Journalism, Arts College, Osmania University, Hyderabad from where he did his post-graduation from. He has been with The Times of India’s Hyderabad edition since its launch in 2000. He has also done an introductory course in film studies from the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, and also from the Central University of Kerala equipping himself with the knowledge of filmmaking for film criticism. He has authored four books. In his career spanning 34 years, he has worked for five newspapers and has also done television reporting. He was also a web journalist during internet’s infancy in the mid 1990s in India. He covers defence, politics, diaspora, innovation, administration, the film industry, Hyderabad city and Telangana state, and human interest stories. He is also a podcaster, blogger, does video reporting and makes documentaries.
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