Soyam Bapu Rao recently said if he does not get the BJP ticket, he would chart his own course, hinting thereby he can contest as a rebel.
Published Mar 13, 2024 | 9:30 PM ⚊ Updated Mar 13, 2024 | 9:30 PM
BJP election campaign in Telangana
On Wednesday, 13 March, the BJP released its second list of names for six Lok Sabha seats in Telangana.
Having announced candidates for nine seats in the first list, it has to announce candidates for two more seats, Khammam and Warangal.
The candidates for the six seats are:
Former MP Godam Nagesh for Adilabad, Gomasa Srinivas for Peddapally, Madhavaneni Raghunandan Rao for Medak, DK Aruna for Mahabubangar, former MLA Shanampudi Saidireddy for Nalgonda and former MP Prof Azmeera Seetaram Naik for Mahabubabad.
Nagesh, Saida Reddy and Seetaram Naik are from the BRS, while Srinivas is from Congress. They joined the BJP on Sunday.
Raghunandan Rao, the Medak candidate, has been with the party for quite some. He lost the 2023 Assembly election from Dubbak to BRS sitting MP Kotha Prabhakar Reddy, who chose to contest for the Assembly.
Raghunandan Rao was elected from Dubbak in a by-election in 2020 on a BJP ticket. He defeated BRS candidate S Sujatha, widow of Solipeta Ramalinga Reddy, by a narrow margin of over 1,000 votes.
The party also cleared national vice-president DK Aruna’s candidature from Mahabubnagar. There was suspense over whether she would make the cut since former MP AP Jitender Reddy was also lobbying for a ticket for the same.
Seetaram Naik, fielded from Mahabubabad, represented the constituency in the Lok Sabha in 2014 on a TRS (now BRS) ticket, defeating Congress nominee Balram Naik by a majority of nearly 35,000 votes.
Shanampudi Saidireddy, the BJP candidate from Nalgonda, lost the last Assembly election from Huzurnagar to Congress nominee N Uttam Kumar Reddy. He was elected to the Assembly in a by-election from this constituency in 2019.
Soyam Bapu Rao, a BJP-sitting MP from Adilabad, was dropped after he fell out of favour with the BJP leadership owing to his proximity to Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy. Both were in the TDP in the past.
It remains to be seen what the future has in store for him. Should he decide to join the Congress, he must compete with former BRS MP Venkatesh Nethakani, who recently joined the grand old party.
Bapu Rao said recently that if the BJP does not field him, he will chart his own course, implying that he might contest as a rebel and cause a haemorrhage of tribal votes that should go the BJP way.
