In Telangana’s Mulugu, 2 women candidates with Maoist backgrounds brave ultras’ threats to seek votes

Mulugu (Telangana): As Telangana goes to polls on 30 November, outlawed Maoists are making their presence felt in the Mulugu constituency bordering Chhattisgarh.

After issuing a boycott call immediately after the Telangana election dates were released last month, the Communist Party of India (Maoist) sent over a six-member action team from across the border, the state police said in a statement.

Their bid is to disturb the elections by “creating a fear psychosis among people by killing public representatives, and political leaders,” Ashok Kumar, IPS, officer on special duty (Operations), Mulugu, told ThePrint.

And braving their threats are two women candidates. Incidentally, both Anasuya Danasari of the Congress and Bade Nagajyothi of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) have Maoist backgrounds. The fight, villagers in Mulugu said, is primarily between the two parties, though the BJP is also in the fray.

Danasari, the sitting Congress MLA, is a popular face of “the bullet to ballot” story in the country. She is better known as Seethakka, a name from her radical days associated with the Maoists.

Fifty-two-year-old Seethakka, who joined the ultras as a teenager, left the movement in 1997 and later became a lawyer. In 2004, she joined politics on the invitation of the then united AP chief minister and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief Chandrababu Naidu. After losing in 2004, she became a legislator in 2009. Trounced in 2014 polls as a TDP candidate again, Seethakka joined the Congress later and regained her seat in the assembly in the last polls.

This time, BRS chief and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) has pitted 29-year-old Bade Nagajyothi against Seethakka in the Scheduled Tribe reserved seat.

Nagajyothi, the Mulugu Zilla Parishad Territorial Constituencies chairperson, is a first-time contestant in the assembly polls. She is the daughter of Maoist couple Bade Nageswara Rao alias Prabhakar and Rajeswari alias Nirmalakka. Prabhakar was killed in a 1999 police encounter in the Tadwai forests, while Nirmalakka died of ill health later.

“I was of preschool age at that time,” Nagajyothi told ThePrint.

While Prabhakar’s brother Murali was also slain around the same time, her other uncle, Bade Chokka Rao alias Damodar, is reportedly the Maoist state committee secretary, also operating as a central committee member.

“I believe in our constitution, have complete faith in democracy and chose this path to serve the people. They (Maoists) also are pro-poor, working classes but operate on a different ideology,” Nagajyothi said when asked about the Maoist call to boycott polls.

Meanwhile, OSD Kumar said the district police are engaged in drone surveillance, cordon and search operations, tactical vehicle checkings, and area domination exercises to counter the insurgents. “We have inputs that the team is planning to plant Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) to kill security personnel deployed for election duties,” he added.

Mulugu Superintendent of Police Gaush Alam told ThePrint that Maoists have also put up posters warning people.

“At present, the Maoist team is lying low. We have Bijapur, one of the worst Left-wing extremism affected, as our neighbour. Chhattisgarh saw some Maoist incidents during the polls, so we are taking all precautions while conducting flag marches in Maoist-prone border areas as confidence building exercises and to encourage people to vote in the elections,” he added.

Large swathes of Telangana, especially the forest-tribal areas, were once under the Maoist influence. Elections were often marred by Maoist boycott calls and violent actions. The situation changed from the mid-2000s, with a combined approach of government’s welfare, development and combat led by the Greyhounds, an elite police force raised for the purpose.

This time, the Election Commission has designated 13 assembly constituencies in the state, including Mulugu, as Maoist-affected segments, where voting process would be wound up an hour earlier, by 4 pm.

Forest dwellers, Podu pattas

Mulugu, one of the largest constituencies in Telangana area wise with dense forests, has Scheduled Tribes forming about 45 percent of the 2,21,095 voters, according to Election Commission data.

During the pandemic, sitting MLA Seethakka became popular for her efforts to deliver food items, clothes to the remotely located tribals in forests, herself trudging on treacherous rocky-hilly trails, handing out essentials such as rice, dal to the needy.

In Ramanjapur village, in the Maoist-prone Venkatapur mandal, residents Ramakrishna Asapalli and Vishwas Reddy spoke highly of her as Boyini Suresh, a Congress worker, showed Seethakka’s name tattooed on his left arm.

Congress worker Boyini Suresh shows Seethakka’s name tattooed on his arm | Prasad Nichenametla | ThePrint

Congress worker Boyini Suresh shows Seethakka’s name tattooed on his arm | Prasad Nichenametla | ThePrint

Assembled at a grocery shop in the evening, the men raised the one issue echoing in many areas — lack of government jobs, TSPSC paper leaks.

While claiming that their MLA is always amid them and easily approachable, the young men alleged that KCR is hindering Seethakka from doing more for her constituents.

Boyini and Asapalli recalled an incident at the newly-built grand Telangana secretariat where Seethakka was allegedly stopped from going in to meet officials.

“Seethakka’s efforts are to gain popularity on social media. I intend to do real service to the people as their MLA,” Nagajyothi, a MSc in Botany and B.Ed., who was a teacher before plunging into politics, countered.

Responding to the pro-Seethakka sentiment, KCR addressed a rally in Mulugu Friday, where he alleged that the sitting MLA never comes to meet him with her constituency demands.

“Though you defeated us, we are taking proper care of you, enquiring about your needs (from BRS leaders here),” KCR said, mentioning the district hospital in expansion and the medical college under construction here. The CM said the Sammakka-Sarakka (twin deities revered by the locals) festival is also being conducted in a grand manner under his regime.

In addition to the basic requirements, such as roads, water, pensions, ration cards, and Podu rights to cultivate forest lands are major issues here. Podu is a kind of traditional, shifting cultivation used extensively by tribals in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

“We have distributed Podu land pattas pertaining to 48,000 acres to the tribals,” KCR said, adding that they will attempt, upon retaining power, to extend the recognition to non-tribals cultivating such lands.

Seethakka, an MA, PhD in political science, questioned these claims, saying that permanent pattas were not given.

She and TPCC chief Revanth Reddy, both formerly with the TDP, share a good rapport and her supporters are confident that the two-time MLA, also a tribal, will become a minister if the Congress comes to power.

Talking to reporters, Seethakka also sounded self-assured of “a ministerial berth in Congress government”.

An AICC member and Mahila Congress leader, Seethakka is also in the good books of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. The Telangana Congress’s Vijayabheri bus yatra campaign was launched by Rahul and his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra from near the UNESCO world heritage site, 13th century marvel Ramappa temple, in Mulugu.

In Mulugu district headquarters, Chinnamsetty Srinivas, who runs a store, is undecided between the two women candidates. The talk though, he said, is that “Seethakka will become a prominent minister if Congress comes to power in the state.”

“That would be good for development here,” he added.

(Edited by Smriti Sinha)