Hyderabad, April 19: The Opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP) has a fight on its hands in the biennial election to the State Legislative Council in Ranga Reddy district.
Though it has the numbers to win the seat in the local body constituency, and has cleared a strong candidate, P Narender Reddy, for the seat, it has a formidable opponent in Kasani Gnaneswar of the Congress.
The Ranga Reddy district MLC seat under the local body constituency has 592 votes — 496 MPTCs, 33 ZPTCs, 56 councillors, six MLAs and one MP.
The TDP already has a clear 72-vote advantage over the Congress, Gnaneswar is known for his wiles and there are fears over horsetrading.
In this context, the 64 votes of the BJP, TRS and others could tilt the scales any which way.
Party president N Chandrababu Naidu is holding meetings daily with party leaders to chalk out a plan to keep the party fold tightly together.
The TDP is mindful of the fact that last time around Gnaneswar, contesting as an Independent, had got the required number of votes by managing to rope in TRS legislators.
As the Congress has fielded a BC candidate, TDP too was mulling one from that community but finally decided on Narender Reddy.
Though, winning or losing a seat in a Council will not affect the party much, the TDP has taken it as a prestige issue since Gnaneswar had been in the party earlier. It is thought he may “influence’’ some MPTCs and ZPTCs in Telugu Desam besides Kasani Swetha, Ranga Reddy Zilla Parishad chairman.
The election is to take place on May 7, but the excitement has already begun with both Congress and TDP leaving no stone unturned to win the seat.
TDP will also contest one seat in the Hyderabad district.
AP State Kuruma Sangham president Y Mallesam is the candidate for Hyderabad seat. With this, the party is contesting two out of the three seats for which elections are due.
–Agencies