The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) on Friday announced candidates for four Lok Sabha constituencies in the Rayalaseema districts in its third list.
A retired IRS official, Daggumalla Prasada Rao, 62, was named as the candidate for Chittoor (SC) Lok Sabha constituency. Mr Rao, who hails from Bapatla district, retired in 2019 as Joint Commissioner in the Income Tax Department. His family runs a construction business in Hyderabad.
Speaking to the media here, Mr. Rao said that he joined the TDP after being inspired by the vision of party chief N. Chandrababu Naidu. “I have been actively involved in social service and in the field of health and education all over coastal Andhra Pradesh. I have the acumen to identify people’s problems, and believe that I have the ability to solve them,” he said. Interestingly, though Mr. Rao had requested the TDP supremo to allow him to contest from Bapatla (SC) Lok Sabha constituency, he was given the Chittoor ticket. The YSR Congress Party’s candidate from Chittoor is M. Reddappa, the sitting MP.
In Kurnool, the TDP has named Panchalingala Nagaraju as the MP candidate to take on the YSRCP candidate B.Y. Ramaiah. While Mr. Nagaraju hails from the dominant Kuruva community, Mr. Ramaiah belongs to another dominant community called ‘Valmiki’. In 2014 and 2019, the TDP fielded B.T. Naidu of the Valmiki community from Kurnool, but on both occasions, the candidate lost to the YSRCP. This time, the TDP is fielding a candidate from the Kuruva community, while the YSRCP opted for Mr. Ramaiah, who belongs to the Valmiki community. The third dominant community in the district is the Yadava.
The TDP announced the name of senior party leader B.K. Parthasarathi as its candidate for the Hindupur Lok Sabha constituency. Mr. Parthasarathi entered politics by becoming Zilla Parishad chairman of undivided Anantapur district in 1996. In 1999, the TDP offered him the MP seat of Hindupur and he won with a majority of 1,34,636 votes, defeating S. Gangadhar of the Congress. In the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, he was defeated by G. Nizamuddin with a narrow margin of 1,840 votes.
In the 2009 election, Mr. Parthasarathi contested as an MLA candidate from Penukonda and won in a triangular fight by 14,385 votes, defeating K.T. Sreedhar of the Congress. He again won In 2014 by defeating Malagundla Sankaranarayana of the YSRCP. In 2019, Mr. Sankaranarayana defeated Mr. Parthasarathi by a wide margin.
As expected, the TDP announced Byreddi Shabari, daughter of former MLA Byreddi Rajasekhar Reddy, as the candidate for the Nandyal Lok Sabha constituency. To face the YSRCP in Kurnool district after the debacle in 2019, the TDP high command had been concentrating on luring the big families into its fold. As part of this, the ticket went to the powerful Byreddi family.
