Doctors, engineers, lawyers, and post-graduates dominate the new Assembly

The 119-member new Telangana Assembly has an unusual surfeit of well qualified professionals and post-graduates, raising hopes of well-informed policymaking and high-quality debates.

Several professionals, including five medical practitioners, nine engineers and 13 lawyers will be discharging their responsibilities as legislators during this term.

In addition, 18 post-graduates and 26 graduates will be representing various constituencies in the State. Two MLAs, Gadari Kishore from Thungaturthy and Chennamaneni Ramesh from Vemulavada, have got Ph. D degrees.

Of the 88 MLAs from the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), 70 have graduate and post-graduate qualifications. The Congress, the main Opposition party, is led by N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, a former Indian Air Force fighter pilot, while Congress working president Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, elected from Madhira, holds a post-graduate degree from a Central university.

Dr. Sanjay Kumar, who got elected from Jagtial by a margin of 61,000 votes, is an ophthalmologist. Hanumanth Shinde, a civil engineer from Osmania University, entered politics after having worked in the Irrigation Department for 11 years. He won on a Telugu Desam Party (TDP) ticket for the first time in 2009 from the Jukkal (reserved for the SC) constituency. He joined the TRS in 2013 and became an MLA in the 2014 election.

“People criticise the political system but don’t enter politics. I decided to make a difference,” he said.

His work in the implementation of welfare and development schemes in his previous term fetched him a comfortable victory in the combined Nizamabad district, he said.

Different priorities

V. M. Abraham, a general physician with 34 years service, was elected for the second time from the Alampur (reserved for the SC) constituency. His priorities are a 100-bed hospital in Alampur, good connectivity, a minibus depot and colleges in Alampur.

There is a focus on education too. Availability of higher education facilities will make a difference to students of poor families who are forced to go to Kurnool in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh. The transfer makes them non-local candidates in Telangana, affecting their future prospects, he said.