The TRS is confident of retaining the Karimnagar Lok Sabha seat, a stronghold of the party since its formation in 2001, in the upcoming parliamentary polls, while the Congress and the BJP hope to breach the citadel of the K Chandrasekhar Rao-led party. It is a clash of the old rivals in the constituency as the sitting MP of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), B Vinod Kumar, had defeated Ponnam Prabhakar of the Congress in the 2014 Lok Sabha election.