T Harish Rao bounces back in party affairs

Hyderabad: Irrigation minister T. Harish Rao, referred to as a ‘troubleshooter’ in the TRS ever since its inception in 2001, has come back into focus in the party’s political affairs after a gap of three years, and after the mega meeting last Sunday which did not live up to expectations.

Mr Harish’s supporters in the TRS are upbeat over the party leadership giving priority to Mr Harish again in the election campaign for the upcoming Assembly elections.

His supporters believed that Mr Harish was getting sidelined from the party’s political affairs since the TRS plenary in 2015. In fact, since then, Mr Harish was confined to his irrigation ministry and spent most of his time visiting Kaleshwaram and other irrigation project sites every other day. He was away even from the city for the most part in the past three years.

IT minister K.T. Rama Rao got all the prominence in the party’s political affairs till the recently held Kongara Kalan public meeting.

However, with TRS chief and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao set to launch the party’s poll campaign for the coming Assembly elections on Friday, the responsibility of organising the party’s first election meeting has been assigned to Mr Harish Rao.

The debate over Mr Harish being sidelined in the TRS came to the fore since the party’s very first plenary held at LB Stadium in April 2015 after it came to power in the state.

Mr Harish was allotted a seat in the back row on the dais which became the subject of a hot debate within the TRS then.

It was soon followed by the Warangal Lok Sabha bypoll in November 2015 and GHMC elections in January 2016. But Mr Harish Rao was seen nowhere as the party handed over responsibilities to Mr Rama Rao. The bypoll for Paleru Assembly seat in May 2016 was also handled by Mr Rama Rao.

Party sources said the recent goof-ups and organisational lapses in holding the Kongara Kalan pubilc meeting effectively, which got negative feedback more than the positive has changed the CM’s viewpoint. He now feels the need to involve Mr Harish actively in the party’s political affairs like earlier.

Even in the 2014 Assembly elections, Mr Harish was the star campaigner for TRS, campaigning for the party’s candidates in half of the constituencies, leaving the campaign in Siddipet, from where he was standing, to his followers. He has been winning the Siddipet seat with a record majority since 2004.

 Mr Harish earned the title of ‘troubleshooter’ in the TRS by ensuring victory for the party in all the bypolls held between 2004 and 2010, when TRS MPs and MLAs resigned demanding statehood for Telangana, which kept the Telangana movement alive. end-of