Hyderabad: The Congress here lodged a complaint with the District Election Officer (DEO) RV Karnan against the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) for allegedly distributing voter slips with images of its party candidate as part of its campaign for the upcoming Jubilee Hills bypoll.
P Rajesh Kumar, convenor, Election Commission coordination committee, wrote a complaint to the DEO stating that BRS leaders are going door-to-door with portable printers and distributing unofficial voter information slips in Jubilee Hills with photos and details of BRS candidate Maganti Sunitha.
Stating that this is a violation of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) laws set in place for the bypoll, the Congress functionary asked the Election Commission official to take action against the BRS. The complaint also had images of the BRS workers seemingly distributing the same.
The upcoming Jubilee Hills bypoll is going to have high stakes for the ruling Congress which is looking to wrest it from the main opposition Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS). The by election has been necessitated after the late BRS legislator Maganti Gopinath passed away recently. The ruling party here was unable to win any seat in the Greater Hyderabad area in the 2023 state elections and hence winning that will of utmost importance for it.
While the BRS is sitting strong in the Jubilee Hills bypoll, the party has been currently hit by internal rebellion. K Kavitha, ex-MLC and daughter of BRS supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR), was suspended from the party on September 2 for her criticism of BRS leaders (and her cousin) Harish Rao and Santosh. Kavitha a day later on September 3 then resigned from the BRS and her MLC post.
Maganti Gopinath’s wife has been nominated by the BRS for the by-poll, while the ruling party has given the ticket to local face Naveen Yadav.
Jubilee Hills by-poll may be triangular fight
In the 2023 elections for the Jubilee Hills seat, Gopinath secured 80,549 votes, while Congress candidate and former Indian cricket team captain Mohd Azharuddin came second with 64,212 votes. Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Lanka Deepak Reddy also managed to secure over 25000 votes, while AIMIM candidate Rasheed Farazuddin came fourth with 7848 votes.
The BJP has given the ticket to Lankala Deepak Reddy, who had unsuccessfully also contested in the 2023 polls. This time the contest will also likely be triangular, as the BJP has made some inroads in the city and state. The party managed to get 20% of the vote share in the 2023 Assembly elections and nearly half the vote share in the subsequent 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
