Nallagonda killa meeda gulabi jenda, the TRS (now BRS) election campaign song in 2018 was prophetic. It won the 11 Assembly segments in the composite district, including two bypolls in Nagarjunasagar and Huzurnagar, and Nakrekal (SC), whose Congress legislator decided to wear the pink kanduva just three months after the December election. However, this ‘fortress’ has been stormed now (see table).
“I wanted to contest from Nalgonda, but people from my Gajwel constituency did not want me to leave. But, if the TRS candidate is elected from here, I will adopt Nalgonda,” party supremo and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao had said in 2018. “Building infrastructure, mutual single permit directions for cement industries and rice mills in Miryalaguda and Huzurnagar (with Andhra Pradesh), and up to ₹10 lakh in farmers’ accounts through Bangaru Telangana,” he promised.
It was in 2009 that TRS entered Nalgonda through Alair segment, and painted it pink in less than a decade. In 2020, the government said that it had ended the decades-old fluorosis, a bone-crippling disease caused by high levels of fluoride in groundwater, in Munugode segment.
Then came the famous redevelopment project of Yadagirigutta’s Sri Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy temple, the sky-rocketing realty values, Kaleshwaram water touching Yadadri-Bhuvanagiri district for irrigation, and also IT tower and medical colleges in districts.
While the ruling MLAs rode high on promises, participated in inaugural events and took part at the maha dharna against the Centre’s ‘anti-farmer legislations’ on highways, the Congress spent its energies on bypolls, Lok Sabha polls and daily politics.
Two years later, Nalgonda town looks adopted – the ‘welcome Nalgonda sign’ thematic entrance, wall paintings, arterial road to the town broadened, lit up and landscaped – on the lines of Siddipet and Gajwel. But unlike the prominent, aesthetic and selfie-worth showpieces, a strong sentiment against the sitting MLAs remained invisible till the day of polling, estimates of which were captured by popular pollsters.
According to Alair sitting legislator and Government Whip G. Sunitha, who lost by 49,636 votes (33,086 votes being her victory margin in 2018) to Congress candidate Ilaiah Beerla, “I feel that people must have thought BRS was given two chances and let’s try with Congress once. I don’t think it is out of an anti-BRS feeling. But I am certain that people will realise what KCR is and what Congress is in one and a half years.”
Congress stalwarts during undivided Andhra Pradesh, hailing from Nalgonda, are back with big numbers now. Legislator couple Huzurnagar’s N. Uttam Kumar Reddy (44,888 margin over BRS candidate Saidi Reddy) and Kodad’s N. Padmavathi Reddy (58,172 vote margin is nearly 77 times her 2018 margin of 756 votes over the same rival contestant).
Emphatic 55,000-mark margins were also recorded by Nalgonda segment’s former Minister Komatireddy Venkat Reddy and Kundur Jayaveer, son of seven-time legislator and heavyweight K. Jana Reddy.
The lowest victory margin of 26,201 votes was for Kumbam Anil Kumar Reddy, who re-joined Congress at the eleventh hour and secured a nomination.
Energy Minister and sitting MLA from Suryapet G. Jagadish Reddy, the only BRS victor, won a close contest with Congress’ Ramreddy Damodar Reddy by 4,606 votes. It is a 11/12 situation again. The Congress has reclaimed the Nalgonda fort.
