Karimnagar Lok Sabha Elections 2024: Bharatiya Janata Party faces tough triangulation with Congress, BRS in Telangana seat

Karimnagar constituency is set to go to polls for the fourth phase of the Lok Sabha elections on May 13, with the Bharatiya Janata Party accusing the Congress of using unfair means to induce voters. In Telangana, the Congress won a landslide victory in last year’s assembly. During the elections, the saffron party is working hard to maintain its grip on the political center in the northern part of the state.

Karimnagar is one of the 17 constituencies in Telangana state, comprising Karimnagar (BRS), Choppadandi (Congress), Vemulawada (Congress), Sircilla (BRS), Manakondur (Congress), Huzurabad (BRS) and Husnabad (Congress). There are seven parliamentary segments. Traditionally a stronghold of the Congress, the BRS and the BJP have succeeded in winning this seat in recent years. It is currently headed by former state unit chairman Bandi Sanjay Kumar of the Bharatiya Janata Party. He is once again one of the front-runners and will face Congress’ Velichara Rajender Rao and BRS’s B. Vinod Kumar.

Bharatiya Janata Party has the upper hand in the triangular battle

In 2019, the BJP won the Karimnagar seat with a margin of over 90,000 votes, causing a major upset to the BRS. The loss was particularly painful for the regional party as this seat was previously held by former chief minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao. Mr. Rao still maintains a weak position with the party.

The Bharatiya Janata Party is currently aiming to expand its voter base in Telangana and win at least 12 of the 17 seats and 35% of the vote. The party doubled its vote share to nearly 14% and won eight seats in last year’s parliamentary elections.

The saffron party has once again fielded the sitting MP from Karimnagar, Bandi Sanjay Kumar. He is banking on the “good work” done by Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the past five years, apart from his personal appeal.

For the BJP, Karimnagar represents a battle for prestige, and the party wants to counter the recent trend of changing seats in constituencies after every election.

But lawmakers face an uphill battle this time around. First of all, he is at odds with both the BRS and Congress. But the BJP has been campaigning in Karimnagar long before the Congress arrived on the ground.

Bandi Sanjay is already campaigning in all the seven assembly areas of Karimnagar. The BJP’s strategy includes street corner rallies and massive door-to-door campaigning across the constituency to expose the “unfulfilled promises” of the former BRS government and the ruling Congress.

Scheduled caste voters make up 18.9% of voters in Karimnagar, which is why the Bharatiya Janata Party is the only advocate for Dalit rights in the constituency. Bandi Sanjay, along with SC Morcha national secretary S Kumar, senior leaders Kondeti Sridhar and Kopp Basha, attended the ‘Dalit Sammelanam’ held in Manukondur recently.

Bandi Sanjay said at the event that when BR Ambedkar passed away, it was the Congress that insulted him by not keeping his ashes in Delhi and moving it to Mumbai. He also said that the Bharatiya Janata Party is the only political party that strictly implements the Ambedkar Constitution.

S Kumar said the BJP has no intention of reducing SC reservations, but once it returns to power, Muslim reservations will be abolished. It is no secret that the party is counting on integrating Hindu voters in Karimnagar across caste lines.

The BRS voter base and its shift to the Congress or the BJP remains the biggest factor in Karimnagar. Despite the challenges facing the BJP, information from the ground suggests that the party appears to have a slight advantage in retaining the seat.

BRS is desperate to win Karimnagar

Karimnagar is a constituency close to the center of BRS supremo KCR. BRS’s first public meeting ‘Sinha Garjana’ was held in Karimnagar and KCR was arrested by the police in 2009 before continuing his hunger strike. In the ongoing elections too, KCR started campaigning by holding public meetings in the constituency in March.

But winning back constituencies in the face of an overbearing Congress and a resurgent Bharatiya Janata Party is proving to be a complex and difficult challenge for the BRS. This may be one of the reasons why regional parties are increasing their claims that the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress are indeed in a secret pact to defeat the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea party in Karimnagar.

The BRS camp appears to be largely focused on the BJP’s supposed plan to declare Hyderabad a union territory and amend the constitution. The party’s incumbent president, KT Rama Rao, maintains that only his party can stop such an attempt in Parliament. It remains to be seen whether such issues will appeal to voters, but the outlook does not look good for the Pink Party.

First of all, there is still a sentiment among voters that the BRS must be kept out of the corridors of power, and their opposition to its tenure in the state government has not been forgotten. Essentially, the BRS is facing off against the BJP, which has been able to retain seats and build a sizable support base, and the Congress, which has only recently come to power and is looking to capitalize on the momentum it gathered in last year’s assembly. election victory.

Lately, the BRS has claimed to be a party that is mindful of the issues faced by farmers. Party leaders, including the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea itself, have been visiting affected farmers, listening to their suffering and trying to give them confidence. This could give the party momentum in the provinces, but the BRS will first have to find an alternative narrative to the parliamentary guarantee system already in place.

According to local sources, BRS is said to be the third candidate in Karimnagar. The battle worth fighting is between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress.

Congress stalled in selecting candidates

The Congress, whose future looked promising after its victory in the assembly elections, may lose the battle for Karimnagar by a narrow margin to the Bharatiya Janata Party. The reasons for this are many, including the ability of voters to distinguish between parliamentary and parliamentary polls and choose accordingly. But much of the confusion Congress is in is of its own making.

The party dragged its feet and delayed announcing its candidates for Karimnagar, resulting in two hopeful candidates filing ahead without being declared candidates. Rajender Rao had submitted his nomination before the ticket was officially announced. He was flanked by Ponam Prabhakar, Minister of Transport and British Columbia’s Human Services, and three members of Parliament: Adi Srinivas, Kavanpalli Satyanarayana and Medipally Satyam. Correspondingly, former MLA A. Praveen Reddy, who was reportedly promised a Lok Sabha ticket from Karimnagar after being denied a ticket to the Husnabad Assembly seat, is also a potential candidate. submitted.

The Congress later announced Rajender Rao as its candidate, which led to discontent within the party among Reddy supporters who were disappointed with the “betrayal” by the party leadership. He enjoys support as president of the Marcanor Cooperative Credit Marketing Association. He is a farmer, dairy farmer, and member of Malkanor Women’s Cooperative Dairy.

Congress leaders now say party officials, farmers and women who benefit from cooperative societies will not support official candidates. This could leave Congress in an extremely vulnerable position.

While the BJP and BRS started campaigning even before the announcement of candidates, the Congress was virtually absent from the field. This gave the parliamentary opposition a significant head start.

The key issues in Karimnagar Lok Sabha constituency are:

• Drinking water supply: Karimnagar faces drinking water shortage every year. This year, the issue resurfaced. Water sources in the region dry up seasonally due to low rainfall and failure to extract water from the Kaleshwaram Irrigation Project. In nine villages of Choppadandi mandal and six villages of Gangadhara mandal, six villages of other mandals do not have drinking water. Drinking water supply has also been cut off in the city. Residents have long complained about the lack of 24-hour water supply.
• Throw away trash: Dumping and disposal of trash has become one of the biggest nuisances in growing cities. One of the city’s unsightly sights is the “heap of garbage” near the banks of the Manaia River. Residents have expressed outrage over the smoke that has accumulated from the burning of waste, causing health hazards. The Karimnagar Municipal Corporation has spent billions of dollars on waste disposal.
• Less mobility: Due to ongoing infrastructure work in the city, half of the roads have been dug up and are full of potholes. The roads in the city are bad and there are many encroachments, construction works and other debris. This has caused traffic disruption as well as delays and mobility issues.
• Unplanned development: The city is expanding rapidly, resulting in constant construction work. Problems include traffic congestion, water stagnation, garbage dumping, and construction debris. This poses significant problems for residents, who are growing impatient with expectations that smart cities are still years away.
• unemployment: There was a desire to set up a railway coach factory in the area and it was shifted to Warangal. There were also requests to reopen the tannery along with the Nizam Sugar Mill to boost employment and economic development, but this never materialized. This has led to growing dissatisfaction among citizens who believe there is a lack of job opportunities. This has also led to young people migrating to Hyderabad in search of better opportunities.
• Health issues: The increase in the number of cases of dengue fever and other seasonal diseases is linked to street flooding caused by inadequate drainage and potholes. The number of cases of the disease increases every year, forcing existing medical infrastructure to cripple as patients are forced to sleep on the floor. Despite these recurring problems, no steps have been taken to improve health or sanitation. Additionally, there are no government-run medical colleges or hospitals in the region, which has a negative impact on affordable healthcare.
• Agricultural issues: Due to annual water shortages, farmers face crop losses and crop failures. The crops that have risen will wither, resulting in heavy losses. Crop losses lead to debt, and farmers are unable to pay their debts due to delays in compensation.
• Unjust land disputes: Another major problem in the region is fraudulent land disputes initiated by civic body officials, corporate corporations, former Mandal parishad local constituency members, and Mandal revenue officials, among others. In the past three months, 22 cases of fraudulent land disputes and land grabbing attempts have been registered.

Voter demographics

Total Voters: 16,51,534

social composition

SC: 3,12,140 (18.9%)

ST: 39,637 (2.7%)

geographical composition

Urban voters: 3,63,337 (22%)

Rural voters: 12,88,197 (78%)

religious composition

Hindu: 93.3%

Muslim: 6.7%