If the speculations doing rounds in the ruling YSR Congress party in Andhra Pradesh are to be believed, party president and chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy is likely to deny tickets to at least 35-40 sitting MLAs in the upcoming assembly elections in the state.
The party had won 151 seats in the 2019 assembly elections. Besides, five others have defected from other parties – four from Telugu Desam Party and one from Jana Sena Party.
The four TDP legislators are: - Karanam Balarama Krishna Murthy from Chirala, Vallabhaneni Vamsi from Gannavaram, Maddali Giridhar from Guntur (West) and Vasupalli Ganesh from Visakhapatnam South; and the only Jana Sena Party legislator was Rapaka Varaprasad.
Jagan has the obligation to give party tickets to these defectors – Karanam wants the party ticket to his son, while the remaining four would contest the elections on YSRC ticket.
Among the originally won 151 YSRC MLAs – four had already defected to the TDP – Kotamreddy Sridhar Reddy, Anam Ramanarayana Reddy, Mekapati Chandrasekhar Reddy and Vundavalli Sridevi.
Jagan has already announced candidates for Tekkali, Addanki, Kuppam, Mandapeta, Vijayawada (East) and Rajahmundry (urban) constituencies, which are represented by the TDP.
Sources said Jagan wants to give assembly tickets to a few MPs – like Vanga Geetha, Vemireddy Prabhakar Reddy, Chinta Anuradha, Margani Bharat and Adala Prabhakar Reddy. So, he has to drop a few MLAs to accommodate these MPs.
Similarly, he wants to field some of his party MLAs in the Lok Sabha elections – like for instance, Botsa Satyanaryana, Tammineni Sitaram, Kurasala Kanna Babu, Dharmana Prasada Rao, Alla Nani and Anil Kumar Yadav etc.
If it happens, Jagan will give party tickets to fresh faces in these constituencies. A few other MLAs like Perni Nani and Chevireddy Bhaskar Reddy also want to drop out of the contest and wants Jagan to give party tickets to their sons.
And there are several others, whose performance is far below the expectations, as per the internal surveys of the party and that of Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC). They would also be denied tickets, sources said.
There are a few more YSRC MLAs who may have to face the axe, in the constituencies where the TDP and the Jana Sena Party might put up a strong fight. Here, Jagan wants to field fresh candidates to overcome anti-incumbency, sources added.