Hyderabad: The election campaign of RS candidate for Chennur Assembly constituency, Balka Suman, on Wednesday began on a tragic note in Inderum village neat Mancherial.
It might be mentioned here that the TRS leadership has allotted the party ticket for Chennur Assembly seat to Balka Suman, a sitting Lok Sabha member from Peddapalli by replacing the sitting member N. Odelu, much to the chagrin and resentment of is supporters in the constituency.
As part of bis election campaign, Balka Suma on today visited the village where the local TRS cadre organized a grand welcome to him in a traditional manner by offering “harathi”. Even as women were performing the harathi, a staunch follower of Odelu, as a mark of protest for giving ticket to Balka Suman, tried to immolate by dousing himself with petrol mixed with kerosene.
In the process the petrol mixture fell on the burning camphor in the harathi plate and also on some people standing nearby. Not only the protestor Gattaiah was engulfed in flames, as many as 10 others, many of them women, sustained burns. All the injured were immediately rushed to the hospital, where the condition of three was sated to be critical.
After the unfortunate incident, Balka Suman alleged that an attempt on his life made by the supporters of Odelu. They tried to set me on fire, he charged and asserted that such coersive tactics and threats would not deter him from contesting the coming elections. He would in fact launch his campaign more vigorously by visiting and addressing the electorate in the entire constituency. (NSS).