Hoping to ride on a sympathy wave to win the bypoll for the Secunderabad Cantonment Assembly seat, the BRS has nominated G Nivedita, sister of sitting MLA G Lasya Nanditha who was killed in a car accident last year.

Nivedita is the daughter of G Sayanna, the five-time MLA from Secunderabad Cantonment who died last year. BRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao decided to nominate her after consulting with party leaders.

The Congress, on the other hand, has fielded Narayanan Sri Ganesh as its candidate after he jumped from BJP to the ruling party. He had contested as a BJP candidate from the same seat during the Assembly elections held on 30 November last year and had lost by a margin of 17,169 votes.

The Congress, which did not win a single seat in the last Assembly elections in Hyderabad and its adjoining areas, is harbouring hopes of opening its account within this bypoll. The constituency comes under Malkajgiri Lok Sabha seat which was represented by chief minister A Revanth Reddy till last year. The bypoll will be held on 13 May along with Lok Sabha polls in the state.

Meanwhile, BRS leader KT Rama Rao suggested that the Congress government should now focus on water tapping instead of phone tapping, accusing the chief minister of trying to divert the attention of the public from the promises made by the ruling party. He said even Reddy is aware that he cannot fulfil the promises that were made before coming to power. But if Congress fails to fulfil the promises then BRS will chase them, thundered Rao.

He also slammed the BJP over the Rama Mandir issue, pointing out that although they had built the Yadadri temple, they did not do politics over it.

The BRS also alleged that the Congress has put up dummy candidates in several constituencies to allow the BJP to win.