Khanapur seat: ‘Sons of soil’ highlight crumbling infra projects, conflicts on land divisions

Adilabad: The Khanapur (ST) Assembly constituency was in the news recently for its Kaddam Narayan Reddy Project lying in a state of disrepair due to the government’s neglect. The project’s shortcomings in infrastructure were exposed by the impact of unprecedented floods during the last few monsoons.

“The government has failed to remove silt from the over 130 years old Sadarmat canal in Khanapur which could have protected its 20,000-acre ayacut. The neglect of the Kadem dam which is more than 60 years old is criminal on the part of the government,” observed an angry farmer Podduturi Satish Reddy, who is also a Congress leader in the district.

“The neglect has brought peril upon the precious irrigation facilities in these parts. This has put a big question mark on the future of paddy farmers under the ayacut,” he added.

The backbone of the strong local agricultural economy the project, popularly known as Kadem dam, has most of its over 2,500 sq km of catchment area situated in Adilabad district while about 68,000 acres of land is irrigated in Nirmal and Mancherial districts.

Meet the candidates

Apart from the irrigation projects, the region is also geographically distinctive, spanning the districts of Adilabad, Nirmal and Mancherial. Adding to this is the fact that the respective candidates were handpicked by Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president A Revanth Reddy and Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) working president KT Rama Rao.

The Congress has fielded an Adivasi leader Vedma Bojju, a protege of Revanth Reddy and the BRS has nominated B Johnson Naik from the Lambada community, a childhood friend of KTR. Both are greenhorns as far as electoral politics are concerned.

The two will be fighting it out with the veteran Ramesh Rathod, also a Lambada tribe leader who was nominated by the BJP. He served as an MLA between 1999 and 2004, was a Member of Lok Sabha once and was Adilabad Zilla Parishad chairman for a term besides losing two other elections.

Profile of Khanapur constituency

Khanapur constituency, which is a segment of Adilabad (ST) Lok Sabha seat, is reserved for Scheduled Tribes. It was carved out in 1978 and now encompasses Kadem, Khanapur, Dasturabad and Pembi mandals of Nirmal district, Jannaram mandal of Mancherial and Utnoor, Indervelli and Sirikonda mandal of Adilabad boasting of an electorate of 2,24,775 persons of which 1,11,878 are males and 1,12,776.

There are an estimated 65,000 tribal voters in the constituency of whom 40,000 are Aboriginal groups and 25,000 are Lambadas. However, the latter have dominated the scene having won all but one of the 11 elections held so far. Ambajee of the Congress became its first MLA. Ajmera Rekha Naik of BRS was the last incumbent having served for two consecutive terms but was denied a nomination for the third time.

The voters in this constituency had returned Congress candidates in three of the first four elections. The Telugu Desam Party and the BRS have held sway in the subsequent elections.

Local tensions come to the fore

The major issues so far that will determine the direction of the elections of areas under Nirmal district will be the damage and repairs, or lack of it, to the irrigation projects. In the areas under Adilabad district, the main issue is the implementation of the Andhra Pradesh Land Transfer Regulation (LTR) Act, 1959, Amendment 1 of 1970.

The mandals of Utnoor and Indervelli form part of the Scheduled Areas and have a sizable tribal population. The tribals have been demanding the implementation of the LTR Act 1 of 1970 as well as the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act of 1996.

“Our lands have been snatched away by non-tribals over the decades. We demand and expect political parties to set right the wrongs meted out to Adivasis in the Agency (Scheduled) areas,” pointed out Arka Santosh, a Raj Gond photographer from Utnoor.

Candidates touring the region

To understand and highlight the issues of the region, Vedma Bojju and Ramesh Rathod, the Congress and the BJP nominees respectively, who are also locals, said that they have been touring the region. They spoke about their visits to the Adivasi hamlets in the previous months and their interactions with the villagers there.

“Voters are behind me this time,” the BJP nominee said, during one of his campaign visits to a remote tribal hamlet in Indervelli mandal. “They are convinced that only BJP can solve their problems,” he said.

Having arrived on the scene comparatively late, Johnson Naik also faces some amount of antagonism for being an ‘outsider.’ A possible disadvantage to the BJP visible from discussion with the locals here is the opposition among the rank is their allegiance to former MLA Rekha Naik, who is now with the Congress.

The fight for the seat seems to be triangular at this juncture. The local candidates, nevertheless, seem to enjoying a slight advantage for being ‘sons of the soil’.