Largest seat with little governance

The most sought after Parliament segment in Telangana is known for its predominant urban electorate that too non-local and spiced with semi rural assembly segments.

Malkajgiri created in 2008  is the country’s biggest parliament constituency spread over  three districts, four municipalities and a large chunk of cosmopolitan voters.

Those not belonging to Seemandhra are migrants from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra and northern states, mostly employees of  PSUs and Railways. “Many call it Little or Mini Vijayawada due to its 90 per cent coastal Andhra population,”  says Jayaprakash Narayan, the sitting (Lok Satta) MLA of  Kukatpalli.

Malkajgiri, the suburban satellite town is just 10 km from Hyderabad and is known for its  two hundred-year-old fort and its old name of Mallikarjunagiri, belonging to a Nizams chieftain. It is more popular for being home to  70 per cent coastal Andhra residents.

According to stories doing the rounds, many politicians such as TDP president Chandrababu Naidu, former health minister D L Ravindra Reddy, Congress MLA Jayasudha and Karthik Reddy, son of former home minister Sabita Indra Reddy are planning to contest from this constituency.

The other aspirants are YSR Congress president YS Jaganmohan Reddy and Jayaprakash Narayan  or even AAP candidate Chandana Chakrabarti (actor-scientist). The seat is also sought by the  BJP whose candidate Indrasena Reddy polled 1,30,000 votes in 2009.

TDP’s vibrant spokesman A Revanth Reddy , MLA from Kodangal in Mahbubnagar, is also in the race .

With 29,53,915 voters, it is the largest parliamentary constituency of the country in terms of number of  urban  and middle class educated electors and is spread over six urban assembly segments of Malkajgiri, Qutbullapur, Kukatpalle, Uppal, LB Nagar, Secunderabad Cantonment besides the Medchel segment in Ranga Reddy district. Except Kukatpalli other six Assembly seats are held by the Congress. It also comprised of regions from three districts — Ranga Reddy, Hyderabad and Medak.

Malkajgiri came into existence after the delimitation exercise in 2008. In  2009 polls Congress candidate Sarve Satyanarayana won and is now Union minister of state for roads and highways. It has a major chunk of Christian and Dalit voters besides backward castes from Seemandhra. Kammas and Reddys have 20 per cent stake and brahmin vote is  around 80,000  and Muslims around 50,000.

The entire constituency is strewn with public sector undertakings, military and defence land, industrial estates of  three districts. The constituency is in need of better administration for government land to be properly identified and municipal services rendered to citizens. The seven MLAs are always at logger heads over services and welfare programmes implementation.