Though the ruling TRS in Telangana won both the MLC graduate seats recently by defeating Congress and BJP, the party leadership seems to yet to come out of the shocking memories of Dubbak Assembly bypoll and GHMC elections in 2020-end in which it suffered setbacks at the hands of BJP.

Though the Election Commission had released Nagarjunasgar bypoll notification and the filing of nominations started three days ago, the TRS is yet to announce its candidate so far.

Congress already announced K Jana Reddy as its candidate.

But both TRS and BJP are playing ‘hide and seek game’ with each party waiting for the other party to declare its candidate first.

The last date to submit nominations is March 30.

There are many aspirants for TRS tickets. Deceased MLA Nomula Narasimhaiah’s son Nomula Bhagat is in the race. But local TRS leaders are opposing Bhagat saying that he is a ‘non local’.

TRS is worried that if ticket is given to Nomula Bhagat, TRS local ticket aspirants opposing him will jump into BJP and BJP will give a tough fight by selection one of the strong local candidates from them.

BJP has no strong local leader in Nagarjunasagar and is waiting for TRS leaders to jump into BJP after KCR announces TRS candidate.

For this reason, KCR is delaying the announcement of TRS candidate though only five days left to file nominations.