Congress leaving no stone unturned to win bypolls

Hyderabad, Nov 28: Despite odds in the form of beedi controversy, Telangana sentiment and 'Scam'relating to Volkeswagen project, the ruling Congress in Andhra Pradesh is leaving no stone unturned to wrest the Karimnagar and Bobbili Lok Sabha seats from the TRS and TDP in the December four byelections.

The controversy related to the Union Government's pictorial ''skull and bone'' warning seemed to overshadow the statehood issue in political discourses in the beedi workers' dominated Karimnagar constituency.

The seat was vacated by TRS chief K Chandrasekara Rao to project the outcome as a referendum on the formation of a separate Telangana state, after falling out with the ruling Congress-led UPA over the delay in formation of the new state by the Congress on the pretext of lack of consensus among UPA allies, including the Left parties.

Eight lakh beedi workers and their family members, hold the key in the Karimnagar constituency with an electorate of 14.50 lakh.

State Marketing Minister Botsa Satyanarayana, who had been shifted from Major Industries portfolio when the scam relating to the proposed Volkeswagen car project by floating a Special Purpose Vehicle Vasisht Wahan came to light, was trying to establish his supremacy in the district by getting the party ticket for his wife Botsa Jhansi to wrest the Bobbili seat from the TDP, which has fielded K Apalla Naidu, son of deceased MP Paidithalli Naidu, who represented the constituency in the Lok Sabha thrice.

The TDP raked up the flight of the car project to Pune in neighbouring Maharashtra due to the scandal surrounding Mr Satyanarayana, while the Congress was highlighting the achievements of the Rajasekhara Reddy Government, including the major irrigation initiative 'Jalayagnam' and Vamsadhara Stage II in the constituency forming part of the backward North Coastal Andhra region bordering Orissa, with an electorate of over 10.14 lakh voters, including 5.21 lakh women.

Leaving nothing to chance, Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy had deployed all his cabinet colleagues and senior party functionaries in the two constituencies, while all major parties, including the TDP and the BJP, fanned out their top functionaries for effective management of the bypolls, considered in political circles as a mid-term appraisal of the functioning of the state government.

While the Congress put the blame on the previous BJP-led NDA Governemnt supported by the TDP and the TRS Chief, holding the all important Labour portfolio for the controversial health warning legislation the TRS held former Union Health minister and BJP leader Sushma Swaraj responsible for conceiving the move to print skull-and-bones logo on bidi packets during the NDA regime and Union Minister of State for Health Panabaka Lakshmi for issuing the enabling notification affecting the livelihood of lakhs of beedi workers.

UNI