YSR Telangana Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy’s sister Y S Sharmila, who has announced her decision to go it alone in the November 30 assembly elections in Telangana, may not stand a chance to win even a single seat, given lack of proper leadership and the party cadre.
But her party certainly has the capacity to tilt the scales and play spoilsport with the winning prospects of candidates belonging to mainstream parties like the Bharat Rashtra Samithi, the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party, at least in some constituencies.
Especially in constituencies which witness a tough contest among the main contenders and the victory margin of any candidate is expected to be in a few hundreds, the contest from YSRTP candidates would certainly make a difference.
Apparently Sharmila realized that there is such a chance in Kodangal assembly constituency where Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president A Revanth Reddy is contesting the upcoming assembly elections.
According to her party source, Sharmila, who has already announced her plans to contest from Palair assembly constituency, is also contemplating contesting from Kodangal constituency too, as a second option.
Though there was a talk that Sharmila might chose Gajwel or Siricilla or Kamareddy as her second constituency to contest so as to be in the public limelight, irrespective of her victory chances, the latest talk in the party is that she is planning to choose Kodangal.
The reason is obvious: Sharmila wants to take revenge on Revanth Reddy, who has stalled her entry into the Telangana Congress by influencing the party high command.
She hopes to split a considerable number of anti-establishment votes in Kodangal, so that it would result in the defeat of Revanth Reddy.
All said and done, Kodangal is going to face a tough contest this time, too. While Revanth is pulling out all stops to win the seat, the BRS, too, is going all out to defeat him by mobilizing all the resources.
Already, the BJP has also improved its strength there, making it a keen contest there. So, whoever wins the Kodangal seat, the margin of victory will be very less.
In such a scenario, if Sharmila contests from there, she would definitely poll a good number of votes, though not enough to win the seat, but they might tilt the balance against Revanth Reddy.
“Since she cannot win the seat in any way, it doesn’t matter for her whether it is Revanth Reddy or Patnam Narender Reddy of BRS wins the seat. But if Revanth Reddy is defeated, it will satisfy her ego,” sources said.