Daughter of revolutionary balladeer enters Telangana gana poll fray with a focus on civic issues

Her father, Balladeer Gaddar, (Gummadi Vittal) was referred to by many names. He was not someone who could go with just one moniker. To some, he was the ‘Battleship of the People’, a leader who could move generations with his rafter-filling voice, and a staunch Leninist-Marxist, if one views him from a political lens. But to scores of other Telugu speakers, he was a socio-cultural icon and was revered as a hitmaking singer.

It is this legacy that his daughter, Dr GV Vennela, is inheriting, after her father passed suddenly in August this year. It has been just a day since her name has been featured in the second list the Congress announced and the MBA professor is delighted that she has been asked to contest from the Secunderabad Cantonment seat.

“I grew up here. My school is just around the corner. I couldn’t have asked for anything better,” squealed Vennela not trying to conceal the excitement and surprise. Her voice is hoarse like her father’s and before one can assume that she’s inherited his singing voice, she’s quick to point out that the change in tonal quality is because of the non-stop calls she has been receiving from well-wishers, party men, and the common cantonment folk.

Vennela, the 43-year-old Osmania University graduate, has a doctorate in management studies, and a post-graduate diploma in school management. She is also a mother to two children- a two-year-old and a four-year-old. And she has exactly one month to metamorphose into a politician. On November 30, she will be locking horns with Bharat Rashtra Samithi’s (BRS) Lasya Nandita, daughter of late G Sayanna, a five-time MLA.

For someone who has burnished her teaching qualifications for nearly 18 years, she is quick to learn by rote the problems faced by those living in the soldiered cantonment area. “There are plenty of civic issues still. The roads are potholed, the area has become a dumping yard for garbage, and the youth are unemployed,” she said allowing herself to trail off as she complained about unequal devolution of funds from the Centre to the army-patrolled region of Secunderabad. For a first-timer and a woman, Vennela is lucky to contest from Secunderabad. There is little to promise and deliver. Much of the heavy lifting would be done by her senior colleagues in the hinterland.

“Other than the implementation of the welfare schemes, there is nothing much to do on this side of the city. But the Congress and BRS will want to win every seat,” said Koteswara Rao, a political analyst. Perhaps it is why this constituency is safe to field women. As a reserved seat for scheduled castes, the options weren’t too many for the Congress to match Lasya Nandita. The grand old party’s choice of fielding Vennela and not her brother Suryakiran is strategic. It is the consolidation of the pro-communist and anti-incumbency votes by offering her a ticket also keeping in mind her caste identity as a Dalit. Before Vennela’s name was announced, her elder brother Suryakiran was also influencing the Congress to field him from Gajwel, the chief minister’s constituency. Speaking to HT, Suryakiran said, “Our affiliation is with the Congress party and we will continue taking a firm stance against KCR. It is our collective dream to walk in our father’s footsteps and work for our people just like he did.”

While the BJP is yet to make its choice of candidate public, campaigning in the largely Christian-dominated, Church and convent-dotted manicured part of Secunderabad should be easy to swing for either of the women, political analyst and economist Dr Pulla Rao said . “Their narratives will not be vastly dissimilar and both will be remembered as their fathers’ daughters,” he said.

A chat with her on her views about politics will display a greenhorn’s understanding of the business of politics as ‘corrupt, forward caste-dominated, and one that is stippled with crime’. “I want to change this view of politics,” she states like she is preparing to offer this as a punchline when she addresses rallies in the coming weeks.

And that’s why Vennela does not have to look far for inspiration. Playing by book and invoking her father’s poems and songs should help her mount a bid for the Secunderabad Cantonment seat, Pulla Rao said. With about seven mandals constituting this assembly seat, Cantonment is one of the 24 constituencies in the Greater Hyderabad region. It is part of the Malkajgiri Lok Sabha constituency.

The last election was won by the late BRS leader, WHO, by a margin of just 2.06% votes defeating Sarvey Satyanarayana of the Indian National Congress.