Telangana Rakshana Sena (TRS) president Kalvakuntla Kavitha on Saturday announced that her party will contest the upcoming by-election to the Khairatabad Assembly seat, in an apparent bid to prove that she remains a force to reckon with in Telangana politics.
The by-election to the Khairatabad seat was necessitated following the disqualification of sitting MLA Danam Nagender. The High Court ordered his disqualification, and the Supreme Court upheld the decision.
Nagender won the Khairatabad Assembly constituency in the 2023 Telangana Assembly elections as a Bharat Rashtra Samithi candidate.
He later joined the Congress and contested the 2024 Lok Sabha elections as a Congress candidate. This eventually led to his disqualification after a prolonged legal battle.
Speaking to reporters, Kavitha said she would appeal to the voters of Khairatabad to teach the Congress a lesson through the bypoll.
She criticised the Congress for fielding a person who had earlier won an election on another party’s ticket, describing the practice as being against democratic values.
She said voters should think carefully before extending support to a party that, according to her, had undermined the mandate given by the electorate.
Kavitha argued that a candidate winning an election on one party’s ticket and later contesting a Lok Sabha election on behalf of another party raised fundamental questions about democratic conventions and the sanctity of the voters’ mandate.
She further appealed to voters to consider the broader implications of such political practices. Supporting such a party, she said, would send a message that constitutional principles and laws were no longer important.
If Kavitha fields a candidate from her party in the Khairatabad by-election, it could turn into a multi-cornered contest, as the BRS and the Bharatiya Janata Party are also expected to treat the seat as a prestigious battle.
The big question, however, is whether the Telangana Rakshana Sena has a strong enough candidate to put up a serious fight, let alone win the seat.
In what could be a close contest, even a small share of votes polled by Kavitha’s party could affect the prospects of candidates from the major parties.
