A battle of the rich in Chevella seat, where Hyderabad’s IT hub meet its neglected parts

A three-cornered fight between three of the richest candidates in Telangana is underway in the Chevella Lok Sabha seat, parts of which comprise the IT corridor and the most upmarket localities of Greater Hyderabad, while the rest cover the backward outskirts of the city.

While the BJP’s Konda Vishweshwar Reddy (declared assets Rs 4,568 crore) is banking on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Congress’s G Ranjith Reddy (Rs 435 crore) is hoping to ride the advantage of being a candidate of the ruling party in the state. The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), which won the seat the past two elections, but is struggling to hold its own in the state since its Assembly poll loss last year, has fielded Kasani Gnaneshwar Mudiraj (worth Rs 228 crore).

At Rs 4,568 crore combined family assets, Konda Vishweshwar, an entrepreneur, is the richest of all the 525 candidates in the fray from the 17 Lok Sabha constituencies of Telangana. His wife Sangitha Reddy belongs to the family that owns Apollo Hospitals, and is an MD with the chain, with her assets at Rs 3,208 crore, making up the bulk of their wealth.

Rangareddy district, which is part of the Chevella constituency, is named after Konda Vishweshwar’s grandfather Konda Venkata Ranga Reddy, who had fought against the Razakars and was the first deputy CM of united Andhra Pradesh.

In 2014, the first Lok Sabha election after the creation of Telangana, Konda Vishweshwar won from Chevella on the ticket of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (as the BRS was known then). He then moved to the Congress, but failed to win the seat in 2019 on its ticket. In 2022, he jumped to the BJP.

The Congress candidate, G Ranjith, is the sitting MP from Chevella, having won the seat in 2019 as a BRS candidate. The owner of