SHOW OF STRENGTH: A rally being taken out in Secunderabad on Tuesday for filing of nominations.— PHOTO: P.V.Sivakumar

HYDERABAD: The Communist Party of India (Marxist) will be making their maiden foray into the Secunderabad Cantonment Board (SCB) poll arena with four of its candidates filing nominations for the forthcoming elections next month.

Though polls for the seven civilian wards are not held on the basis of political parties, the Congress party has traditionally reigned supreme in the Board for several years now.

The Telugu Desam Party, Bharatiya Janata Party and Telangana Rashtra Samiti have made their presence felt in the civilian wards, but the Left Parties have so far not been able to make much of an impact.

CPI (M) wants to change all that with its candidates filing nominations for wards II, IV and V. Ch. Srinivas and Yadagiri have filed their nominations for ward II while P. Sudershan and G. Satyanarayana filed papers for wards IV and V respectively.

"The time is ripe for us to make an entry into SCB. We have carefully assessed our strength and decided to contest in three wards. We are sure to emerge victors in two of them and stand a good chance of winning at least one," said N. Somaiah, CPI (M) secretary.

Preparing hard

That the party has been preparing for the Cantonment polls is evident by the fact that in the last one year, it has been organising meetings concerning civic matters with the colony residents and also took up a walkathon to study the state of affairs in the area.

"Cantonment residents are unhappy about the lack of proper roads, sewerage and acute shortage of drinking water. There has been no development at all in the last few years as the administration has been apathetic and corrupt," he charged.

Mr. Somaiah also pointed out that welfare and developmental activities were practically non-existent in the 75-odd slums in the Secunderabad Cantonment with neither the Central nor State Government according recognition to them.

The party intends to take up a peoples' contact programme from Wednesday.

Earlier in the day, before filing the nominations, the CPI (M) organised a cycle-rickshaw rally from Annanagar Crossroads to the SCB office traversing Indirammanagar, Rasoolpura, Gun Bazaar, Jagadeeshwarnagar Colony, Chandanagar and Balamrai. City secretary P.S.N. Murthy and zonal secretary Papi Reddy participated.

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