The Khammam Lok Sabha constituency in Telangana is set to witness an interesting contest among Congress, BRS and BJP.
While Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) is facing an acid test in retaining the seat, following its crushing defeat in recent Assembly elections, the Congress party with the help of the Left appears confident of wresting it.
While it is mainly the fight between the ruling and main opposition parties, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which hardly has a presence in the constituency, is also determined to give a tough fight.
BRS has once again fielded sitting MP and industrialist Nama Nageswara Rao while the Congress party declared Ramasahayam Raghuram Reddy as its candidate in the eleventh hour.
Raghuram Reddy is the son of senior Congress leader and former MP from Mahabubabad and Warangal, Ramasahayam Surender Reddy. He is a relative of Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy and Tollywood actor Daggubati Venkatesh.
Venkatesh’s daughter Aashritha is married to Raghuram’s eldest son Vinayak Reddy while Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy’s daughter Swapni is married to Raghuram’s second son Arjun Reddy.
Buoyed by its impressive performance in the recent Assembly elections, the Congress party is confident of wresting the seat from BRS.
The Congress and its ally CPI made a clean sweep in Khammam in Assembly polls held in November 2023. Out of seven Assembly segments, Congress bagged six while CPI won Kothagudem, the lone seat it contested.
It’s significant to note that Congress and CPI won all the seats with a huge majority. Three of the ruling party MLAs have become ministers. Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka is the Deputy Chief Minister and Finance Minister. Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy and Tummala Nageswara Rao, who had quit BRS to join Congress a few months before polls, became ministers.
Ponguleti, who succeeded in his challenge to BRS president K. Chandrasekhar Rao that he will ensure Congress win all Assembly segments in the united Khammam district, has taken the responsibility of party’s win in Lok Sabha polls as well.
After losing power and suffering a series of setbacks with the defection of several leaders, the BRS is struggling.
With not even one BRS MLA, Nageswar Rao is finding the going tough. Adding to the woes of BRS, Khammam Mayor P. Neerja and many local public representatives, including sarpanches, have defected to Congress.
BJP hardly has any presence in the constituency. The party does not even have a sarpanch. In recent Assembly elections, the BJP and its ally Jana Sena Party of actor Pawan Kalyan suffered humiliating defeat in all seven segments.
However, BJP candidate Tandra Vinod Rao believes that the voting trend will be different in Lok Sabha elections. He hopes that the Modi factor will help him win the seat.
In 2019, Nageswar Rao of BRS defeated former Union Minister Renuka Chowdary of Congress by a majority of 1.68 lakh votes. Nageswar Rao polled 5,67,459 votes while Renuka Chowdary secured 3,99,397 votes. BJP’s Vasudeva Rao was a distant fourth with just 20,488 votes.
Khammam constituency has been a stronghold of the Congress since its inception in 1952. Barring the first two elections in which the PDF and the CPI had won the seat, Congress bagged the seat 11 times so far.
Former Chief Minister Jalagam Vengal Rao and his brother J. Kondal Rao had won the seat two times each. Former Chief Minister Nadenda Bhaskar Rao and former Union Minister P. V. Rangaiah Naidu of the Congress and CPI(M) State Secretary Tammineni Veerabhadram represented the constituency once each.
It was in 2009 that the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) scored its first and only win when Nama Nageswara Rao defeated Renuka Chowdary.
The 2014 elections held after the division of Andhra Pradesh threw a surprise result as Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy of YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) defeated Nama Nageswara Rao of TDP by a narrow margin. BRS, then known as BRS, was a distant fourth.
Ponguleti later defected to BRS to help the party establish itself in the district situated on the Andhra-Telangana border which shares many cultural and social commonalities with neighbouring Andhra Pradesh.
The political equations changed before the 2019 elections with Nama Nageswara Rao switching loyalties to BRS. The party ignored sitting MP Ponguleti to field Nageswara Rao. Jolted by a series of defections, TDP decided to stay away from Lok Sabha polls in Telangana. YSRCP led by Jagan Mohan Reddy also decided to confine itself to Andhra Pradesh politics. Various factors helped BRS score its maiden victory in a district, where the Telangana movement had not resonated.
A significant share of Khammam’s population belongs to the Kamma community, which is socially and politically influential in Andhra Pradesh.
TDP president N. Chandrababu Naidu, who is a Kamma, tried to revive TDP in Telangana with a public meeting in Khammam in 2022 but his plans failed to take off and the party did not contest the recent Assembly elections.
In the current election campaign, all three parties are trying to woo Kamma voters and for this, they are invoking TDP founder and former Chief Minister N.T. Rama Rao.
Nama Nageswara Rao belongs to the Kamma community and he hopes to get a big chunk of their votes. Since the community had backed Congress in the Assembly polls, the ruling party leaders hope that they will continue the support.
Agriculture Minister Tummala Nageswara Rao, who is a Kamma and was once associated with TDP, is also reaching out to the community and making efforts to ensure that the TDP’s traditional voters throw their weight behind Congress.