The announcement of candidates by the Bharatiya Janata Party for the assembly and Lok Sabha seats in Andhra Pradesh has triggered disgruntlement not only within the party, but also in its alliance partners, Telugu Desam Party and Jana Sena, people familiar with the matter said.
As part of alliance with the TDP and Jana Sena, the BJP was allotted six MP seats and 10 MLA seats, out of the total number of 25 Lok Sabha and 175 assembly seats in the state. The BJP released the list of candidates for all the six Lok Sabha seats on last Saturday and 10 assembly seats on Wednesday night.
These lists caused a stir within the party. A senior BJP leader who was denied the party ticket said on condition of anonymity that the party had given importance to leaders who defected from other parties, rather than those who had been loyal. For example, out of six candidates selected for the MP seats, only Bhupati Srinivas Varma, who was given the party ticket for Narsapuram parliamentary constituency, is the genuine BJP leader with an RSS background.
“All the other five MP candidates, including state BJP president Daggubati Purandeswari (Rajahmundry), C M Ramesh (Anakapalli), N Kiran Kumar Reddy (Rajampet), Kothapalli Geetha (Araku-ST) and Dr Vara Prasad (Tirupati-SC) are defectors from other parties,” the BJP leader quoted above said.
{{/usCountry}}“All the other five MP candidates, including state BJP president Daggubati Purandeswari (Rajahmundry), C M Ramesh (Anakapalli), N Kiran Kumar Reddy (Rajampet), Kothapalli Geetha (Araku-ST) and Dr Vara Prasad (Tirupati-SC) are defectors from other parties,” the BJP leader quoted above said.
{{/usCountry}}Purandeshwari, daughter of TDP founder N T Rama Rao and sister-in-law of present TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu, had been associated with the Congress for a long time and even served as the Union minister in the then Manmohan Singh government. She defected to the BJP after the bifurcation of combined Andhra Pradesh and collapse of the Congress in the state.
On the other hand, N Kiran Kumar Reddy, too, was a hardcore Congress leader and he served as the last chief minister of combined Andhra Pradesh. After being in oblivion for nearly eight years, he returned to the Congress in 2022, but defected to the BJP in 2023.
Similarly, C M Ramesh, who was a two-time Rajya Sabha member from the TDP, also defected to the BJP in 2019. Former MPs Kothapalli Geetha and Dr Varaprasad were in the YSRCP and defected to the BJP only recently.
Among the candidates chosen for the assembly seats, too, there are a couple of defectors – like Y S Chowdary, a two-time MP from TDP, has been given the BJP ticket from Vijayawada (West) and C Adinarayana Reddy from Jammalamadugu, who defected from YSR Congress Party to the TDP and later to the BJP in 2019.
“A few other non-serious contenders like N Eshwar Rao, M Shiva Rama Krishnam Raju and Bojja Roshanna are also given the tickets, though they have no capacity to win the seats. Some of hardcore BJP leaders, like former party president Somu Veerraju and vice-president S Vishnuvardhan Reddy, were denied party tickets,” the BJP leader said.
Similarly, outgoing Rajya Sabha member GVL Narasimha Rao, who has been nurturing the Visakhapatnam Lok Sabha constituency, was also unlucky as he was not picked up by the BJP, since the seat has gone to the TDP as part of alliance. “I have been working for the growth of the party in Visakhapatnam and fighting on public issues. Yet, I have been denied the ticket. But I will continue to raise the voice in favour of the people of Vizag,” he said, adding that he would soon declare his future course of action.
The allotment of certain seats to the BJP have created unrest in the alliance partners as well. For example, Jana Sena Party leader Pothina Mahesh, who was expecting the party ticket for Vijayawada (West) seat, is terribly upset with the seat being allocated to the BJP’s Y S Chowdary. “I will contest as an independent and win the seat,” Mahesh said.
Similarly, the allotment of Anarpathi seat in East Godavari seat to BJP candidate M Shiva Krishnam Raju triggered a revolt in the TDP, as former MLA Nallamilli Ramakrishna Reddy who was aspiring for the seat, accused party president N Chandrababu Naidu of ditching him by colluding with the TDP.
“I have been fighting against the YSRCP in the constituency and faced several cases. I shall also contest as an independent to defeat the YSRCP, as the BJP is no force in Anaparthi,” he said.