Telangana

Move over cash-for-votes: TRS is here with baths-for-votes in Telangana!

TRS is soaping up its voters, quite literally!

Written by : Balakrishna Ganeshan, Priyanka Richi

Gone are the days when politicians tried wooing voters with liquor and cash. While some leaders in the state of Telangana will be seen at their humble best for the next month, yet others are desperately attempting to portray themselves as the leader of the masses. A series of pictures which have gone viral on social media show a few TRS MLA candidates who have taken the election campaigning to new levels, leaving the Opposition and voters alike, flummoxed!

This election season, in addition to the traditional election rallies and bevy of never-to-be fulfilled election promises, candidates may also be seen at the doorstep of potential voters helping with household chores and some even going as far as giving haircuts and baths! Some are going as far as trying their hands at making crispy savouries.

The leaders seem to not only be focused on possible voters alone, but have also been seen essaying the role of a nanny for young children.  

Perhaps, they’ve taken a cue from Speaker of the Assembly, Madhusudhana Chary, again contesting from Bhupalpally constituency, who has been doing the household chores of voters. Several photos of Chary touching the feet of voters, feeding them and even giving them a neat shave have been doing the rounds on social media.

Another political leader, Tungaturthi MLA Gadari Kishore, has gone one step further and has been on a haircut spree, giving haircuts to several in his constituency.

Upping the game, Mahabubnagar MLA V Srinivas Goud has been seen stitching clothes and performing a number of other tasks such as constructing houses, cleaning rice, and helping women get water.

The TRS campaign trail is hot with candidates who are feeding voters, partaking in household chores, with even one candidate who went as far as to give a grown man a bath and filmed the same. Though the photos and videos being circulated on social media seem to be amusing (and even embarrassing) TRS leaders are not relenting. Quthbullapur TRS MLA KP Vivekanand and his supporters even went to the extent of bathing a baby! (Who knows, maybe years from now maybe the child will even cast his vote in support of the party?)

In yet another video, Chinta Prabhakar from Sangareddy, clearly a believer of “reaching someone’s heart through their stomach,” is seen making laddus.

Nearly a month ago, Telangana Rashtra Samithi supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao exuded confidence at a public meeting in Nalgonda and stated that his party would secure 110 of the 119 constituencies. While this confident statement could be due to the fact that he believes the TRS regime in the past four and half years performed well without a hint of corruption, or maybe he just knew that his party candidates would go above and beyond and put together an extremely efficient campaign.  

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