With the Election Commission of India on Wednesday announcing the schedule for the Rajya Sabha bye-election to fill a vacancy from Andhra Pradesh, speculations began on who would get the nomination.
The by-election is necessitated following the resignation of former YSR Congress party general secretary V Vijayasai Reddy from the party and his Rajya Sabha seat in January this year.
As per the schedule announced by the EC, the nominations will be accepted till April 29 and scrutiny will take place on April 30.
The deadline for the withdrawal is May 2 and the polling, if necessary, is scheduled for May 9, followed by the counting of votes on the same day at 5 pm.
However, since the YSRCP doesn’t have enough strength in the assembly to contest the by-elections, the election of the Telugu Desam Party-led coalition candidate will be unopposed and declaration would be done on May 2 itself.
As per the understanding among the coalition partners, this Rajya Sabha seat is expected to go to the Bharatiya Janata Party, although the other two alliance partners – Telugu Desam Party and Jana Sena Party were also interested in the seat.
Sources suggest that the BJP leadership in Delhi has already conveyed this decision to chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu and deputy CM Pawan Kalyan.
Based on caste representation, the coalition had earlier given two out of three Rajya Sabha seats to leaders from Backward Classes (BCs) after they joined the alliance from the YSRCP.
Now, with Reddy community leader Vijayasai Reddy stepping down, the BJP is inclined to nominate another leader from the Reddy community to maintain balance. The new MP will serve until June 2028.
The BJP has also decided that the candidate for this seat will be from the Rayalaseema region.
According to reports, Sai Reddy, who is keen on returning to active politics by joining the BJP, asked the BJP national leadership to renominate him for the RS seat. If it is not possible, he suggested his daughter Neha Reddy’s name for the seat.
However, the BJP national leadership has turned down his requests, because it doesn’t want to antagonise the other two alliance partners who do not like Sai Reddy or his family members to become active in state politics again.
Alternatively, according to sources, the BJP is considering three contenders for the vacant RS seat: former Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy, former Rajya Sabha member GVL Narasimha Rao or a prominent industrialist from Rayalaseema (whose name has been kept secret).
There is also a possibility that the BJP might nominate a senior leader or industrialist from other parts of the country for the vacant RS seat from Andhra, who would help the party in the upcoming assembly elections in other states.