The death of party veteran Ramreddy Venkata Reddy is a double whammy for the Congress, which is gradually losing many senior leaders to TRS.

In Ramreddy Venkata Reddy’s death, not only has the party lost one senior leader with considerable influence but it now has to retain the constituency in the byelection. A tough job indeed, given the political mood of the people in state in favor of TRS.

In the next six months, byelection need to be held for the Palair constituency, Khammam district. Reddy got elected from Palair weathering the T-wave that reduced the Congress to minority party, ineligible even for the status of opposition party in Assembly. Palair is the second constituency where the party lost sitting MLA due to death. The Congress, responsible for the creation of Telangana, is finding it difficult to retain the constituencies fallen vacant due to death as happened in the case of Narayankhed last week. Narayankhed byelection was necessitated by the death of Congress MLA Krista Reddy, last year. But, chief minister KCR took it as a challenge to wrest it from Congress, despite the the party’s request to nominate  Reddy’s son uncontested in recognition of his father’s contribution to the constituency.

Now, following the death of Venkatareddy, KCR is expected follow the same tradition and field party candidate in the byelection to wrest the seat from the Congress.

While some MLAs and MLCs crossed over to TRS, natural causes like death of legislators have also become a problem for the party to cope up with.