Political parties generally try to maintain caste, community and gender balance while selecting candidates for contesting the elections to Lok Sabha.
Of course, they also take into consideration various other factors such as experience, loyalty to the party and also public perception towards the contestants while issuing the party tickets.
But, for Telangana Rashtra Samithi president and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, all these factors don’t matter.
For him, only loyalty to his family and of course, monetary status of the candidates matter in the issuance of tickets.
KCR doesn’t bother about criticism that he is ignoring weaker sections or genuine Telangana activists.
And he strongly believes that his personal image and his government’s programmes are the only factor to win the elections and not the caste or community equations.
It was clearly evident in the issuance of party tickets for both in the recent assembly elections and also the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.
Those whose names are never heard during the Telangana movement or who have nothing to do with the caste balance can be found in the TRS list.
They include: M Srinivas Reddy in Mahabubnagar, Pothukunti Ramulu in Nagarkurnool, G Ranjith Reddy from Chevella, M Rajasekhar Reddy from Malkajgiri, Borlakunta Venkatesh Nethakani and T Sai Kiran Yadav in Secunderabad. Only Malothu Kavitha was an ex-MLA and daughter of former minister P Redya Naik.
While people have stopped bothering about these caste and community equations, the Congress party continues to rake up these issues to target the TRS and KCR.
On Monday, PCC minorities’ wing leader Shaik Abdulla Sohail alleged that TRS had not given even a single ticket to Muslims in the Lok Sabha elections.
He alleged that KCR was openly opposed to political empowerment of minorities, especially Muslims.
“KCR does not want Muslims to get elected to law making bodies and for the same reason he has been denying tickets to Muslims since beginning," he said.
But who cares? That is KCR!