By announcing Gellu Srinivas Yadav, a young and nondescript student leader, as the TRS candidate for the Huzurabad Assembly byelection, TRS supremo and Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has made it amply clear that he would be taking personal care to help him trounce BJP's Eatala Rajender in the poll battle.
Winning the election is crucial for Chandrasekhar Rao since the outcome would indicate which way the wind is blowing as the State moves closer to the 2023 Assembly elections. Srinivas Yadav, who belongs to a Backward Class, is at present the TRS Student Wing (TRSV) State president. The factor that works in Srinivas Yadav's favour is that he played an active role in the separate Telangana movement. An alumnus of Osmania University, he is also a law graduate. In 2010, Srinivas Yadav conducted a 650-km 'Vidyarthi Maha Padayatra' from Osmania University to Kakatiya University to involve students in the Statehood movement.
The bypoll for the Huzurabad Assembly segment was necessitated due to the resignation of former Minister Eatala Rajender. Several BC organisations as well as Minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav welcomed the Chief Minister's decision to field a BC leader as the TRS candidate.
In Huzurabad, Finance Minister T Harish Rao, who campaigned for the party on Wednesday, said that it will be a battle between Srinivas Yadav, who owns just two guntas of land, and Rajender, who owns 200 acres of land. "Srinivas Yadav is sure to win the bypoll with the blessings of the Chief Minister," Harish Rao said. In the run-up to the Huzurabad bypoll, the Chief Minister chose to send P Kaushik Reddy, who defected to the TRS from the Congress, to the Legislative Council.
KT Rama Rao, TRS working president, had this to say on microblogging site, Twitter:
Best wishes to TRS student wing president @GelluSrinuTRS Garu who has been announced as the @trspartyonline candidate in upcoming Huzurabad by-election. He fought hard in Telangana agitation & hopefully another TRS student leader will enter Assembly with blessings of the people