Hyderabad: As the polling date for upcoming assembly elections in Telangana approaches, the campaigning trend of the candidates is changing. Every vote is being counted and strategies are being improvised to win over every single voter. In their constituencies, the rival parties are targeting the votes of the areas where they have a strong footprint with second-tier leaders who are active in the field being given a huge attention to please them.
In Hyderabad suburbs, some candidates are showering gifts on the rival candidates. In one such rare election strategy, a party leader of a major political party who realized that there was a possibility of getting more than 5,000 votes through a disgruntled leader of another party, gave him an assurance that he would give three acres of land and made him join his party, sources said.
Sources said that the disgruntled leader of the major party in a rural constituency in the joint Rangareddy district was disappointed with the party and rebelled after not getting a ticket. Sensing an advantage of votes, the leader of another party offered an olive branch and won over the disgruntled leader in lieu of the land, sources said.
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In more such unusual tactics to win over the rival candidates, it is learnt that the candidates are presenting vehicles and goods worth lakhs of rupees to the second tier candidates to win over their vote share. Candidates are making an estimate that even if each second-tier leader gets exactly one thousand votes, there is a possibility of getting 20 thousand votes with 20 such people.
Others are entering into agreements by giving some advances first and the rest after winning the elections. Sources said that a candidate in a constituency on the Hyderabad-Bangalore National Highway offered to give house plots of 600 yards each to the local leaders, who join his party. It is learnt that it has been offered to take the land documents on the polling day itself.
In the Rangareddy district, a leader of a major party has said that if he won, he would give each of the target leaders a car worth Rs 35 lakh and would pay 25% as a down payment, while they will have to pay the monthly installments themselves. Likewise, in a constituency of Medchal-Malkajigiri district, a candidate has promised to give work contracts worth Rs 10 crore to some local leaders who are discontent over him getting a ticket in the elections.
A leader who lost in the last election in a constituency under GHMC is now in the ring once again. It seems that he has agreed with the corporators that if he wins, he will be given vehicles worth Rs 20 lakh. The members of the booth committees, who work most crucially on the polling day, have been kept away by the respective parties from other rival parties by the candidates for a month in a bid to prevent horse trading.
