Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) election campaign committee chairman Eatala Rajender will take on BRS president and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao from Gajwel constituency and the party brought back and renominated suspended legislator T. Raja Singh from Goshamahal.
Sources said the first list of 55 BJP candidates, reportedly cleared by its central election committee on Saturday, has three MPs — Bandi Sanjay (Karimnagar), Dharmapuri Sanjay (Korutla) and Soyam Bapu Rao (Boath ST) — party’s national vice-president D. K. Aruna is to contest from Gadwal. Former MP A.P.Jithender Reddy will test his luck from Mahabubnagar constituency.
Sitting MLA from Dubbak Raghunandan has been renominated while the State unit chief and Union Minister G. Kishan Reddy has been exempted and will not contest from Amberpet as speculated earlier. Senior party leaders and former MLA Chintala Ramachandra Reddy is to contest from Khairatabad seat while former MLA N.V.V.S. Prabhakar will contest from Uppal.
According to top BJP sources, some of the names cleared by the central leadership include: Ale Jeetendra (Malakpet), Niveditha Reddy (Nagarjunasagar), Ramchandra Reddy (Palakurthy), G. Vijayarama Rao (Station Ghanpur), Dashmanth Reddy (Jangaon), Chandupatla Keerthi Reddy (Bhupalpally), Kunja Dharma Rao (Bhadrachalam). Mr. Dharma Rao is the husband of former MLA Kunja Satyavathi, who passed away last week.
Errabelli Pradeep Rao (Warangal East) and Ravula Padma (Warangal West), Satyanaryana (Yakutpura), Kondeti Sridhar (Wardhannapet), Sankineni Venkateswara Rao (Suryapet), Achari (Kalwakurthy), Kadiyam Ramachandraiah (Thungathurthy) and Sudhakar Rao (Kollapur).
Other aspirants, who got BJP tickets are: A. Maheshwar Reddy (Nirmal), Payal Shanker (Adilabad), Sangappa (Narayankhed), Mohan Reddy (Bodhan), Venkatramana Reddy (Kamareddy), Rani Rudrama (Sircilla), Bodige Shoba (Choppadandi), Gudur Narayan Reddy (Bhongir), Srilatha Reddy (Huzurnagar), Koppu Basha (Vikarabad), Hussain Naik (Mahabubabad), Ravindra Naik (Yellandu) and Amar Singh (Karwan). The party has fielded two former journalists — Sangappa and Rani Rudrama.
