Jana Reddy Sure To Win Sagar Seat: Manickam Tagore

Telangana AICC in-charge Manickam Tagore today said that the victory of the Congress candidate for the upcoming Nagarjuna Sagar by-election, K Jana Reddy, was but imminent.

Speaking to the media, Tagore claimed that the veteran leader was sure to win the seat since he was seen as an upright and dedicated public servant unlike Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao who, he claimed, had had to resort to "using police, money and liquor power" in his desperate attempt to win the by-election.

He then flayed the police for "behaving like TRS agents" who were tacitly supporting the ruling party's alleged electoral misdemeanours. He condemned the arrest of Dalit leader K Manavatha Roy and said that the "undemocratic and illegal actions" of the TRS regime were only proving how threatened it was by Jana Reddy.

The leader then went on to also lambast the Election Commission of India and the State Election Commission for "completely failing" to preventing the TRS' violations of the election code of conduct.

Urging the voters of Nagarjuna Sagar to reject the TRS' candidate for the seat, Nomula Bhagat, he told them that it was Jana Reddy who would stand by them and become their voice in the state Assembly.

"We must prove to the TRS that distributing money and liquor does not prevent deserving leaders from winning elections. Jana Reddy is sure to win the April 17 election if polling is carried out in a democratic way. I appeal to you to support a candidate who fought for the creation of Telangana and has worked tirelessly for the public for many years," the Congress bigwig added.

Taking a jibe at the BJP, Tagore said that it had been proved that the victory of the party in last year's Dubbaka by-election was a one-time occurrence and that this would be proved beyond doubt yet again in the upcoming by-election.