HYDERABAD: The high-stakes
campaign
for Lok Sabha elections in Telangana came to a close on Saturday. Polling for 17 LS seats in the state will be held on Monday (May 13).
Mikes fell silent at 6 pm after more than three weeks of hectic and
bitter
campaigning that saw top leaders of national and regional parties criss-crossing the state. Prime Minister Narendra
Modi
, several Union ministers including Rajnath Singh and
Amit Shah
, and
Congress
leaders Mallikharjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi and Telangana chief minister A
Revanth Reddy
hit the campaign trail to drum up support for their respective party candidates amidst searing heat conditions.
While CM A Revanth dubbed the contest as a "fight between Gujarat and Telangana pride", BJP strongman and Union home minister Amit Shah exuded confidence of winning at least 10 seats out of 17 seats in the state. Shah even claimed the BJP has an edge in 13 LS constituencies.
Revanth's campaign centered around
reservations
alleging that BJP, if voted to power at the Centre again, will try to abolish quota for SC, ST and OBC sections.
Modi, Revanth lead campaign from the front in Telangana
After claiming that the Dec 3, 2023 assembly election results were a ‘semi-final’ and that he would play the ‘finals’ on May 13, the CM exhorted Telangana
voters
to elect 14 Congress MPs to make Rahul Gandhi PM by defeating the ‘Gujarat team’.
He also alleged that BJP and BRS have a tacit understanding as BRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao tried to buy peace with the saffron party to ensure release of his daughter K Kavitha, who was arrested in the Delhi liquor scam case. Asserting that the BRS will be wiped out after the Lok Sabha elections, Revanth said, “The car (BRS symbol) has gone to the mechanic’s shed and it will never come back.
It will be sold as scrap.” Though BRS tried to make political capital out of Congress govt’s failure to implement Rs 2 lakh farm loan waiver scheme and Rythu Bandhu scheme, Revanth — despite the Election Commission stopping the Rythu Bandhu disbursement before the polls — claimed that the amount was deposited in the accounts of remaining four lakh farmers by May 6. Wooing the farmers, he even promised: “I swear on Lord Rama of Bhadrachalam that farm loans would be waived before Aug 15.”
Revanth himself addressed over 60 public meetings, rallies, roadshows and streetcorner meetings. The BJP focussed mainly on how the Congress party will try to snatch away reservations and allot the same to Muslims and controversial comments by Congress leader Sam Pitroda on “race and skin colours of Indians”. PM Modi himself gave a curious twist to the poll narrative by raking up the issue of crony capitalism and asked how many tempos of “Ambani and Adani” had reached Congress in return for Rahul going silent on the top businessmen at a rally in Karimnagar recently.
Rahul was quick in response, by asking Modi to send CBI and ED to enquire into the cashloads ‘received’ by Congress. Telangana chief electoral officer Vikas Raj announced the commencement of the ‘silent period’ at 6 pm. “Preparations for the elections are complete. Polling staff will head to the polling booths starting Sunday morning,” he said. The law enforcement agencies seized `320 crore worth cash, liquor, drugs, gold and other freebies in the run-up to the elections.
Reports of money distribution by political activists, such as one incident involving BRS in Medak, surfaced on Saturday where voter inducement was caught on camera.
English (US) ·