Days ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, the TRS has released its full list of 17 candidates. 2 Congress defectors to also contest.
Telangana: The Telangana Rashtra Samithi on Wednesday released its full list of 17 candidates, who will contest in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls in April. TRS has nominated 7 of their 10 sitting MPs for the polls.
The TRS has also announced two names for the legislative council positions out of the 4 seats won by the party in the recently-concluded elections in the state.
At the Peddapalli Lok Sabha constituency, the former MP Balka Suman has been replaced by Venkatesh Nethakani.
For the Nalgonda seat, the party has fielded Vemireddy Narasimha Reddy.
The only woman Lok Sabha candidate for the TRS other than chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao's daughter is Maloth Kavitha.
She had defected from the Congress to the TRS after her loss in the Telangana Assembly polls in 2018. M Kavitha will be contesting from Mahabubabad, and has replaced A Sitaram Naik, the former TRS MP.
The party has fielded Talasani Saikiran Yadav for the Secunderabad Lok Sabha constituency. He is the son of the present animal husbandry minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav and will be taking on G Kishan Reddy, the Lok Sabha candidate for the BJP from the Secunderabad seat, formerly held by former Union minister Bandaru Dattatreya.
The Malkajgiri Lok Sabha seat was previously held by Malla Reddy, who was then with the TDP. He had, however, defected to the TRS in 2018. The party has fielded Marri Rajasekhar Reddy for this seat. He will be going up against Revanth Reddy of the Congress and Ramachander Rao of the BJP.
After Konda Vishweshwar Reddy, who was the Chevella MP of the TRS, shifted to the Congress, the TRS has fielded Ranjith Reddy for this Lok Sabha seat.
Interestingly, the TRS has also fielded a candidate for the Hyderabad Lok Sabha constituency. Puste Srikanth is all set to take on Assudddin Owaisi, the sitting MP from Hyderabad and chief of the AIMIM. The TRS had initially decided not to field any candidate against their ally, the MIM.
For Khammam, the party has fielded Nama Nageshwar Rao, who had defected from the Congress and joined the TRS just hours before the list was released on Wednesday.
The party has nominated present Nalgonda MP Gutha Sukhender Reddy and Kukatpally TRS leader Kurmaiah Gari Naveen Rao as MLCs.
The political contest in Telangana is a two-way fight between the TRS and the Congress.
In the Assembly elections held in December last year, the ruling TRS swept the polls, bagging 88 out of the 119 seats.
The polls are also crucial for K Chandrasekhar Rao's Prime Ministerial ambitions as he plans to forge a Federal Front; a consortium of regional parties at the Centre.
Lok Sabha elections in Telangana are scheduled in a single phase on April 11.
Read Exclusive COVID-19 Coronavirus News updates, at MyNation.