Adilabad: Congress aspirant Srinivasa Reddy booked for violating MCC, distributing pressure cookers

Adilabad: Congress aspirant from Adilabad Assembly constituency Kandi Srinivasa Reddy was booked for distributing pressure cookers.

This move came after the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) came into force in Telangana.

Srinivasa Reddy has created more than a ripple in the political circles by becoming a familiar name with his style of campaigning.

Hailing from Hasnapur village in Tamsi mandal of Adilabad district, Kandi Srinivasa Reddy is into Information Technology business in Texas, USA.

He had entered the local political firmament as a BJP supporter about a year ago by taking up social work programmes. He switched sides after being assured of a ticket by the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president A Revanth Reddy.

He borrowed the idea from the election campaign of Nara Bharat Reddy who won the Bellary seat in May 2023 Karnataka Elections. Reddy who has targetted women voters, gifted pressure cooker to each of the estimated 45,000 voter families in the constituency as part of his ‘social work programme’.

The package box of the cooker has a picture of the ‘philanthropist’ NRI on all four sides and an appeal in English and Hindi seeking the blessings of the ‘beneficiary’. The container itself has his laser-embossed image.

As part of the activities of the social work organization Kandi Srinivasa Reddy Foundation, runs into a few crores of rupees as each 5-litre cooker costs just over Rs 1,000. The initial order of cookers was for 32,000 units of the thermodynamic systems of cooking, which would cover the 28,000 families in the Adilabad district headquarters town.

"It was his move to distribute pressure cookers five months before the polling that is believed to have paid off,” a campaign manager in Adilabad said.

The aspirant, who swears he entered politics only to wipe off the tears of the eyes of the voters in the constituency, carries with him the halo of a rich benefactor.