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BJP to contest by-polls to Tirupati Lok Sabha seat, Jana Sena drops out
Jana Sena Party chief Pawan Kalyan went to New Delhi a couple of times in the last four months to meet the BJP national leadership, including party chief J P Nadda and Union home minister Amit Shah and lobby for the Tirupati seat. Yet, the BJP refused to give up the seat to its alliance partner.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will contest the forthcoming by-elections to Tirupati parliamentary seat in Andhra Pradesh’s Chittoor district with the support of Jana Sena Party headed by actor Pawan Kalyan.
Union minister of state for parliamentary affairs and BJP in-charge of Andhra Pradesh affairs V Muralidharan announced this on Friday evening after a meeting of state BJP leaders with their Jana Sena Party counterparts.
“Leading the fight for the people and by the people, a @BJP4Andhra’s candidate, backed by @JanaSenaParty will fight Tirupati by-election. An unanimous decision was taken at a meeting attended by Shri @PawanKalyan Ji & Shri @somuveerraju Ji. @JPNadda @Sunil_Deodhar @blsantosh,” Muralidharan tweeted.
The by-election to Tirupati Lok Sabha seat is needed due to the sudden demise of sitting YSR Congress party MP Balli Durgaprasada Rao due to Covid-19 in September last year.
Jana Sena Party, which has an alliance with the BJP, had been very keen on contesting the Tirupati by-poll for various reasons. The constituency, reserved for SCs, has considerable number of Kapu votes which are the backbone of Jana Sena Party (Pawan Kalyan belongs to Kapu community).
Secondly, the Tirupati assembly segment was earlier represented by Pawan Kalyan’s elder brother K Chiranjeevi, a popular Telugu actor and former Union minister, between 2009 and 2012 and he has a huge fan following there.
Thirdly, the BJP is not a very significant force in Tirupati. Its candidate Bommi Srihari Rao had got just 1.22 per cent of votes, which is lesser than the votes polled under NOTA (1.96 per cent).
The Jana Sena Party chief went to New Delhi a couple of times in the last four months to meet the BJP national leadership, including party president J P Nadda and Union home minister Amit Shah and lobby for the Tirupati seat.
Yet, the BJP refused to give up the seat to its alliance partner. At the meeting held with Pawan Kalyan and his senior colleague Nadendla Manohar, BJP state president Somu Veerraju and party co in-charge of Andhra affairs Sunil Deodhar conveyed the message by the central leadership that it was keen on contesting the Tirupati seat.
“After detailed discussions, it was decided that the BJP will contest the Tirupati by-poll. The candidate will be decided by the party Central Election Committee and announced shortly,” Veerraju said.
There has been no statement from Pawan Kalyan in support of the BJP so far.
