The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday released its final list of 14 candidates for the November 30 polls in Telangana. The candidates include senior leader N Ramachander Rao, a former MLC, who has been fielded from Malkajgiri here.
The other candidates in the list are — A Sridevi (Bellampalli-SC), Dugyala Pradeep (Peddapalli), Deshpande Rajeshwar Rao (Sangareddy), Yenugu Sudarshan Reddy (Medchal), Ravi Kumar Yadav (Serilingampally), Rahul Chandra (Nampalli), K Mahender (Chandrayangutta), Sri Ganesh Narayan (Secunderabad Cantonment-SC), Konda Prashant Reddy (Devarkadra), Anugna Reddy (Wanaparthy), Rajagopal (Alampur-SC), K Pulla Rao (Narsampet) and Perumarpally Vijaya Raju (Madhira-SC).
BJP sources, as quoted by PTI, also said that its NDA ally Janasena of actor-turned-politician Pawan Kalyan would contest eight out of the total 119 seats in the assembly polls.
On November 2, the saffron party announced the names of 35 candidates for the upcoming Telangana Assembly elections, just hours after the party’s Central Election Committee met in Delhi to finalize the names of its remaining candidates for the Rajasthan and Telangana polls.
The list featured several ST and ST candidates as well as one woman candidate. Challa Srilatha Reddy will be pitted against BRS’ Shanampudi Saidireddy from the Huzurnagar constituency.
The BJP has also fielded Lankala Deepak Reddy against cricketer Mohammad Azharuddin (Congress) in the Jubilee Hills constituency. Two BJP parliament members – G Kishan Reddy and K Laxman – who earlier unsuccessfully contested for Telangana Assembly have been kept aside for the November 30 polls.
Meanwhile, BRS MLA Rathod Bapu Rao and Congress leader Chalamala Krishna Reddy had earlier joined the BJP in the presence of BJP president J P Nadda in Delhi. Both leaders had been denied tickets by their original parties for the November 30 polls. They were joined by several other leaders from the Yellareddy constituency.
The BRS MLA from Boath was denied a ticket by the ruling party. While Krishna Reddy was a Congress ticket aspirant in the Munugode assembly constituency, the party had ultimately chosen to field former MLA Komatireddy Raj Gopal Reddy.
Raj Gopal Reddy had recently quit the BJP and returned to the Congress fold – a year after his resignation from Congress led to a by-poll in Munugode
.