There is a dire need for a strong voice in Parliament to champion the cause of Telangana people, says B Vinod

BRS heavyweight Vinod Kumar aims to win Karimnagar Lok Sabha seat in 2024 elections, focusing on development and progress.

Banking on the ‘development’ plank, Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) heavyweight B. Vinod Kumar, one of the founding members of the TRS (now BRS), is eyeing to win back the Karimnagar Lok Sabha seat, which he represented from 2014 to 2019, in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections slated for May 13.

Mr. Vinod is the BRS candidate for the high-stakes Karimnagar Lok Sabha constituency, which was the epicentre of the separate Telangana movement.

The former vice-chairman of Telangana State Planning Board is spearheading a vigorous campaign using key election slogan ‘Vinodanna Galam Karimnagar Ku Balam’ seeking votes to become ‘people’s voice’ in Parliament.

He is pitted against the BJP’s Bandi Sanjay Kumar, incumbent MP from Karimnagar, and the Congress party’s Velichala Rajender Rao.

Mr. Vinod claims to have participated in 106 debates and raised 553 questions in Parliament during his tenure as MP (2014-2019).

Amid the high voltage electioneering, Mr. Rao talks about his election campaign and the BRS’s electoral prospects in an interview with The Hindu. Excerpts from the interview:

Such questions were raised even earlier during the launching of our political party (Telangana Rashtra Samithi). There were some political critics who said that even in the event of TRS winning all the 17 seats in Telangana, how can TRS achieve Statehood for Telangana. They expressed cynicism saying it required 272 MP seats to ensure passage of a Bill in the Parliament for formation of Telangana State. But we proved our critics wrong. Even by winning five MP seats in 2004, we sensitised the national political parties on the struggle for Statehood for Telangana. And 28 political parties have given consent letters for the formation of Telangana. Subsequently, the long cherished dream of Statehood for Telangana was realised through agitations and all other processes.