Telangana Rashtra Samithi president and caretaker chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao is unlikely to lose the assembly elections from his Gajwel constituency, but he is said to be still worried over the poll outcome.
Reason: Congress candidate Vanteru Pratap Reddy is giving him a run for his money. In the last elections, KCR defeated him with a margin of just around 19,000 votes.
This was despite the fact that Reddy was a Telugu Desam Party candidate and KCR was enjoying huge popularity as the leader who brought statehood to Telangana.
Now that KCR is the chief minister, he should be in a position to win the seat more comfortably and moreover, he has developed Gajwel like never before.
He was aiming at a majority of not less than one lakh. But still, Pratap Reddy is giving him a tough fight, because of his accessibility to the people and his clean image.
And KCR is now worried over the reports that the margin of victory might come down drastically and if it happens, it would be a big insult for him.
That is precisely why, the TRS is specifically targeting Pratap Reddy. On Monday night, the police raided his house at Kompally on the city outskirts following a complaint that he was distributing money to the party workers.
An agitated Pratap Reddy sought to protest the police raids and argued with them. When they insisted that they would enter his house to conduct searches, he tried to douse himself with petrol and tried self-immolation. But the police arrested him and released him later.
The angry supporters raised slogans against police and KCR alleging that TRS leaders were trying to torture their leader on the name of searches.