E-Paper
Former collector among TRS candidates for MLC elections in Telangana
While outgoing MLCs Gutha Sukhender Reddy from Nalgonda and Kadiyam Srihari from Warangal were re-nominated for a second term, Padi Kaushik Reddy from Huzurabad in Karimnagar district, Banda Prakash from Warangal and Takkallapalli Ravinder Rao from Nalgonda will be the fresh faces to the council.
Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) on Tuesday nominated former Siddipet collector P Venkat Rami Reddy, who a day before quit service to join the party, to the state legislative council under the MLAs’ quota.
Apart from Reddy, the TRS finalised the names of five other candidates for the six vacant MLC seats under the quota.
While outgoing MLCs Gutha Sukhender Reddy from Nalgonda and Kadiyam Srihari from Warangal were re-nominated for a second term, Padi Kaushik Reddy from Huzurabad in Karimnagar district, Banda Prakash from Warangal and Takkallapalli Ravinder Rao from Nalgonda will be the fresh faces to the council.
Soon after receiving the B-forms (party nomination papers) from the TRS president and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) at his residence, all the six candidates filed their nominations in the state assembly secretariat. Tuesday was the last date for filing nominations under the MLAs’ quota.
Though elections to these six seats are scheduled for November 30, all the TRS candidates are likely to get elected unopposed since the TRS has 103 MLAs in the 119-member state assembly and the opposition parties do not have enough numbers to field their candidates. It requires at least 12 MLAs to elect an MLC under the legislature quota. The Congress has only six MLAs, the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) has seven and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has three MLAs.
Interestingly, Padi Kaushik Reddy, who defected from the Congress to the TRS before the recent by-elections to Huzurabad, was earlier nominated under the governor’s quota. But, governor Tamilisai Soundararajan did not accept his nomination because he did not fulfil the criterion for appointment under the social service category. As a result, the TRS president withdrew Reddy’s nomination from the quota and selected him under the MLAs’ quota.
Another surprising choice was of Banda Prakash Mudiraj, who is currently a Rajya Sabha member. Though he still has three more years to complete his term in Rajya Sabha, the TRS leadership chose to nominate him to the legislative council. The move will result in the by-election to the Rajya Sabha seat shortly.
