Adivasi academic and Independent candidate from Yellandu Assembly constituency Gummadi Anuradha interacts with a shopkeeper as part of election campaign in Yellandu town of Bhadradri Kothagudem district on Tuesday.
| Photo Credit: ARRANGEMENT
Thirtyeight-year-old Gummadi Anuradha, Telangana’s first Adivasi female Assistant Professor of Law, is banking on the legacy of her father Gummadi Narsaiah, a five-time MLA from the Yellandu Assembly constituency, to succeed in her maiden electoral debut.
The Adivasi academic is trying her luck in politics by entering the poll fray as an independent from the ST-reserved Yellandu Assembly constituency, represented by her father Gummadi Narsaiah for five terms, in Bhadradri Kothagudem district.
She is backed by the CPI (Marxist-Leninist) Prajapandha which holds considerable sway in the constituency, an erstwhile stronghold of the CPI (ML-New Democracy). In all, 20 candidates are in the fray from Yellandu seat for the November 30 Telangana Assembly polls. The contestants in the fray include sitting MLA Banoth Haripriya Naik of the BRS, Koram Kanakaiah of the Congress and Dharavath Ravinder Naik of the BJP.
The constituency headquarters Yellandu is considered as the birth place of the 134-year-old Singareni Collieries Company Limited.
A native of Tekulagudem village in Karepalli mandal, Ms. Anuradha went on to become a faculty member at the prestigious Osmania University in 2017. She completed her PhD on the topic “Tribal Property Rights” from OU the same year.
She forayed into electoral politics on the slogan to “usher in change and clean politics to improve the lot of people of the ST-reserved Yellandu Assembly constituency.”
She found a star campaigner in her 65-year-old father Gummadi Narsaiah, known for his impeccable integrity and simplicity, as she hit the campaign trail accompanied by her father to reach out to voters in every nook and corner of the constituency.
While harping on her father’s legacy, she is spearheading a vigorous campaign targeting the “turncoats” and vowing to defeat those relying on “money power” at the hustings.
“I have entered the poll fray to highlight the unresolved issues such as long pending demand for setting up of a steel plant in Bayyaram, formation of new mandals with Komraram and Bodu as headquarters, irrigation and other basic facilities in remote tribal habitations in the tribal majority district,” Ms. Anuradha says.
“If elected, I would amplify people’s voices and strive to defend the rights of tribal people, resolve the long pending issues in the constituency,” she asserts
