The ongoing battle for the Jubilee Hills assembly seat in the by-election scheduled on November 11, has turned out to be a platform for moral posturing — with every political party accusing the other of sheltering criminal elements, even as all sides engage the same rowdy-sheeters for electoral battle.
Take the case of a smear campaign unleashed by the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) against Congress nominee Naveen Yadav, which has exposed its own hypocrisy.
The BRS’s mouthpiece “Namaste Telangana” splashed stories branding Naveen a “rowdy-sheeter” and questioned Minister Seethakka’s decision to campaign for him, citing past police cases against his father, Chinna Srisailam Yadav.
But the attack quickly backfired.
Analysts reminded the BRS that the same Chinna Srisailam Yadav was once a trusted associate of KCR himself; photographs of the two together at earlier events now circulating widely online.
“If he was a rowdy-sheeter then, why did KCR patronize him?” a Congress leader asked pointedly.
Political observers call it a case of “all saints before elections, all sinners after defection.”
The BRS, which projects itself as the moral custodian of Telangana politics, has itself rewarded figures like Minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav; once a TDP leader and a vocal critic of the Telangana movement.
Interestingly, Chinna Srisailam Yadav, whom the BRS calls a rowdy sheeter now, is closely related to Talasani Srinivas Yadav.
“When they join you, they become patriots and reformers; when they oppose you, they’re suddenly criminals,” a senior journalist observed.
What is worse, the BRS recently inducted one Salman, reportedly facing multiple criminal charges, including under the POCSO Act. He was welcomed into the party by none other than BRS working president K T Rama Rao.
Naturally, the opposition leaders were quick to question how a party that accuses rivals of criminal nexus can justify such an induction.
Congress, too, is not without blemish. While its leaders cry foul over BRS’s moral duplicity, the party has quietly embraced several strongmen and former offenders in its own ranks, citing “mass appeal” and “ground connect.”
The same pattern extends to the BJP, which often rails against lawlessness but does not hesitate to field candidates with pending cases when electoral arithmetic demands it.
So, every political party is relying on rowdy elements to mobilize crowds and intimidate opponents, while publicly claiming to uphold clean politics.
As one veteran journalist remarked, “In Telangana’s by-polls, rowdies are not outcasts; they’re campaign assets. The only difference is who gets to call whose rowdy a reformer.”