Bharat Rashtra Samithi president and Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao is gearing up for the upcoming electoral battle in the state much ahead of his rival political parties – the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party.
As reported in these columns, KCR has already prepared the first list of candidates to fight the assembly elections.
“He is giving final touches to the list and is likely to release the list on Monday, which turns to be an auspicious day – Sravana Somavaram,” a party source said.
KCR has been staying put in his farmhouse in Siddipet district, where he had gone after the Independence Day celebrations on Tuesday, apparently to avoid pressure from various quarters for the party tickets.
There have been reports in various mainstream media that the party leaders and cadre in several constituencies have been demanding that the sitting MLAs should not be given tickets again due to largescale anti-incumbency.
In some constituencies, they are also threatening to defeat the sitting MLAs if they are given the tickets again. This led to clashes within the party in several assembly constituencies.
However, source said, KCR has decided to retain the sitting MLAs in 90 percent of the constituencies. Only in some areas, where there several controversies or legal issues regarding the sitting MLAs, the BRS president might make changes.
After assessing all the pros and cons, KCR might release list of 90 candidates on Monday, almost all of them being sitting MLAs. A list of these candidates is going viral on social media. It appears to be more or less correct, as it contains majority of sitting MLAs.
If the list is correct, KCR has made changes in four assembly constituencies of which three are BRS seats, one is of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
In Warangal (east), sitting MLA Nannapaneni Narender would be replaced by Vaddiraju Ravichandra, who is presently a Rajya Sabha member.
In Station Ghanpur, controversial sitting MLA Tatikonda Rajaiah would be denied the ticket this time and he would be replaced by MLC and former minister Kadiyam Srihari. Apart from allegations of corruption, Rajaiah also faced allegations of sexual harassment of a woman sarpanch.
In Jangaon, too, KCR has decided to drop sitting MLA Muthireddy Yadagiri Reddy, who has been facing severe allegations of corruption and land encroachments. Even his daughter made lots of allegations of land grabbing against Muthireddy.
Muthireddy would be replaced by another MLC Pochampalli Srinivas Reddy, a non-controversial leader.
In Dubbak, which is represented by BJP MLA M Raghunandan Rao, the BRS would be fielding Kotha Prabhakar Reddy, who is presently a Lok Sabha member from Medak.
It remains to be seen whether there are any further changes in the list.