New wave, new wins  Premium

New MLAs in Telangana's 3rd Assembly bring clarity of vision for their constituencies, with plans for development. From doctors to techies, NRIs to Adivasis, these first-time legislators are determined to make a difference. Immediate plans include a ₹11,000cr highway, Pranahita project revival, and donation of MLA salary. Despite SC directions, 80 MLAs have cases against them. Hopeful for future, with senior legislators to guide new entrants.

Twenty-four years ago, Palvai Harish Babu, then 18, was studying medicine in Osmania Medical College, Hyderabad. He remembers September 15, 1999 clearly: he had just got up to start his day when the phone rang — at the time a landline. The family of four lived in the modest Sirsilk Mills Officers quarters in the industrial town of Kagaznagar, in Kumaram Bheem Asifabad district (then Adilabad), about 280 km from Hyderabad. 

The caller broke the news that his father, Palvai Purshotham Rao, a three-time MLA, had been shot by People’s War Group, Naxalites. Harish Babu ran out of the house even as his wailing mother, Palvai Rajyalaxmi, tried to find out what was happening. When he reached Dr. Madhu’s Hospital on the Railway Station Road in Kagaznagar, he saw his father’s bullet-riddled body. Three of this father’s bodyguards also lost their lives. 

Elections to the Andhra Pradesh Assembly were just three days away when the killing of the soft-spoken Purshotham Rao, popularly called the ‘Prajala Manishi’ (people’s man), sent shock waves through Andhra Pradesh. Until 1989, Purshotham Rao had been an independent MLA. In 1999 he chose to contest on a Telugu Desam Party (TDP) ticket, the party then in power. 

“Ours is a modest simple middle-class family and my father always used to keep us away from politics. I never had a chance to think of politics,” says Dr. Harish Babu, fresh from his win in the Sirpur constituency, on a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ticket. In the immediate aftermath, “My mother reluctantly entered the fray to fight the by-election after his death. She won the elections. Even at that time, I never thought about entering politics,” he says. His older sister Shravanthi has kept away from politics, and his mother never stood for elections again. He went on to finish a post-graduate degree in Orthopaedics from Sri Ramachandra University in Chennai. 

Today, he and 50 others below 50, are a part of a group of first-time MLAs, voted in as representatives of change to Telangana’s third Assembly. Most are highly educated, with 15 doctors, of who four are orthopaedics specialists. There are techies, like Lasya Nandita,36 years, a software engineer, who won her maiden election from Secunderabad SC constituency, once represented by her father late G. Sayanna. Some newcomers are NRIs, like Madan Mohan Rao, 54 years, the first-time legislator from Yellareddy constituency in Kamareddy district, who owns software companies in America. But there are those who have worked to get an education and live in the communities they represent. BRS MLA from Alampur Vijayudu comes from a humble background and used to supervise the MGNREGS What unites them is a clarity of vision for their constituencies, and a clear action plan based on development. 

Immediate plans 

“It was only in 2009 that I began to explore the possibility of trying my luck in politics,” Dr. Harish Babu, now 44, says. At the time he was caught between choosing politics and a professional life. “I thought, ‘What will happen if I fail in politics?’ So, I decided to take up medical profession and worked in Hyderabad. Then, I felt the need to be with the people of the Sirpur constituency,” he says of what is considered a backward area. “I returned to Kagaznagar and set up a 100-bed Praja Life Care Hospital, which became my lifeline. This gave me the chance to come closer to the people and know their problems better,” he says.