With Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) head K Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) contesting from the Gajwel and Kamareddy seats in the coming November 30 Assembly polls, the BJP and Congress have begun sharpening their knives to take him on. The more interesting of two fights is Gajwel, given that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has fielded ex-BRS minister and Huzurabad MLA Eatala Rajender against KCR. Eatala may be an outsider, but the Mudiraj community, which is believed to be the second largest group amongst Backward Classes (BC), might just play spoilsport.
Eatala Rajender was sacked from the state cabinet by KCR over allegations of corruption in 2021. Prior to that, he also challenged KCR’s authority within the BRS, which some believe is why KCR cut him down to size. Since then Eatala has been posturing himself as KCR’s biggest rival in the state.
After his sacking from the cabinet, Eatala then joined the BJP, resigned as an MLA and even won the by-election. It was a big slap on the face for the BRS, as KCR had then even unveiled the Dalit Bandhu scheme (Rs 10 lakh for beneficiaries) for the by-poll. Eatala, who is now the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) blue-eyed boy, will be contesting from Huzurabad and Gajwel, which in fact has about 30000-odd Mudiraj votes out of close to 1.95 lakh votes.
Telangana chief minister KCR in the 2014 polls, just before Telangana was formed, decided to vacate his Siddipet seat for his nephew and now BRS minister T Harish Rao. KCR and his family have been winning Siddipet since 1985. The BRS supremo chose the Gajwel seat in Medak district, and managed to win it with 86000-odd votes in 2014 with a margin of about 12000 votes over his Telugu Desam Party (TDP) rival Tumkunta Narsa Reddy. Eatala was then a close aide of KCR. Narsa Reddy is now the Congress candidate.
An uphill task
In 2018, KCR managed to drastically increase his winning margin, as he secured 125444 votes, or 60.45% of the vote share, in spite of a consolidated opposition. His closest Congress rival V Pratap Reddy got 67154 votes, while the BJP candidate was nowhere in the race with just about 1500-odd votes.
“There is a chance that Eatala can swing the Mudiraj votes, but whether that will even impact the result is to be seen. There is definitely some anger in the Mudiraj community, as the BRS did not give any tickets to leaders from that group, and Eatala is now their biggest leader. However, only having a face from the community is not enough, because there are other factors that also have to be compelling enough for people to vote for Eatala, ” said a political observer, who did not want to be named.
In Telangana, BCs form about 53% of the population, but are also not united. Munnuru Kapus, followed by Mudiraj, Yadavs and Gouds form the larger BC communities in terms of number. A BJP leader said that realistically speaking Eatala is unlikely to win, but that his candidature is likely to have an impact on the seat, especially if it pulls away all the Mudiraj votes to one side. If Eatala does manage to have an impact, then it will certainly make KCR rethink his strategies.
