Largest constituency in Telangana to witness battle of turncoats
The Hindu
Hyderabad Malkajgiri constituency, a battleground for turncoats, faces key issues like infrastructure and civic amenities in upcoming elections.
Malkajgiri, the largest constituency in Telangana, has become a battle of the turncoats with all the top three contestants having jumped parties — Eatala Rajender a former Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS)/Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) minister is contesting under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) flag, P. Sunita Mahender Reddy is the Congress candidate, having moved from BRS and R. Laxma Reddy is contesting from BRS having quit the Congress.
The constituency adjoining the twin cities, but bereft of sufficient civic infrastructure, has gained prominence because its last representative has been none other than Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy himself. He had, in fact, resigned from his MP seat to be sworn in as the Chief Minister of Telangana in December last.
His win in 2019 elections despite the BRS flag flying high gave Mr. Revanth Reddy a much needed boost to his political career as he had lost in the then Assembly elections few months before from Kondungal constituency. As an MP Mr. Revanth Reddy could get closer to Rahul Gandhi, become the Congress president despite opposition from the old guard and steered the party to victory in the 2023 Assembly polls against all odds.
Naturally, his pride is at stake here and having personally ensured Vikarabad Zilla Parishad chairperson Ms. Sunita Reddy gets the party ticket, he is pulling no stops in aggressively campaigning by holding street corner public meetings and telling people that a vote for her is a vote for him.
Narrow roads, clogged traffic, inadequate drinking water — are among the main issues here and to the Chief Minister’s credit, he had managed to get the Defence Ministry’s permission for building two flyovers over defence lands towards Nizamabad and Karimnagar as soon he took over. But, it will take a while in the making so will the proposed metro rail connectivity to Medchal and other places.
Mr. Reddy had ensured the Cantonment Hospital at Bolarum is refurbished during Covid and has now plans to make it into a full fledged hospital but the issue of civilian areas of Secunderabad Cantonment Board (SCB) merged into the GHMC plus land issues is yet to be resolved.
Although SCR’s MMTS suburban train network has been extended, trains services are spartan and unreliable forcing commuters to use the clogged roads with bridges on tracks either incomplete as in Neredmet or in a dilapidated condition as in RK Puram. A flyover at Uppal remains incomplete and those near Medchal are under construction.