The BJP, the main rival of Telangana's ruling party, will reportedly kick-start its campaign for the soon-to-be-held Nagarjuna Sagar by-election, necessitated by the
sudden passing of incumbent MLA Nomula Narsimhaiah, with a large public meeting in the constituency's Halia village.
Sources from within the party revealed that the meeting will be held at the Sri Lakshminarasimha Swamy Gardens.
The BJP's decision to hold the meeting in Halia follows a rather controversial meeting convened by Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, also held there. The CM had recently stirred up a storm while addressing a public meeting in the village on February 11, after he called the leaders of the Opposition "dogs" and "vultures". He even called the saffron party's leaders "beggars who did not know when to go beg as they were new to begging".
Speaking on the matter, the election campaign in-charge of the constituency, Sankineni Venkateswara Rao, said that Telangana BJP in-charge Tarun Chugh and Dubbaka MLA M Raghunandan Rao would take part in the meeting, and added that many leaders from several other parties would cross over to the saffron fold during the program.
He then took a jibe at TPCC head N Uttam Kumar Reddy and alleged that the latter was actually working for the CM, and claimed that this was the reason the leader had been targeting the BJP.
Reddy is likely to have attracted the ire of the BJP with his acerbic criticisms of the Centre and the party's leaders in the state. Just some days ago, he had
attacked the party for not having done anything for the people of Telangana.
On another instance, the Congress leader had
slammed the BJP-led Centre for having consistently been "unjust" in its treatment of Telangana since it came to power, and had even described the party's politics as being "unethical" and "corrupt".