Hyderabad: After a lot of brainstorming, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi leadership on Tuesday finalized the names of six candidates for the MLC seats to be filled under the MLAs’ quota.
According to the party sources, the finalized candidates are Gutha Sukhender Reddy, Kadiyam Srihari, Padi Kaushik Reddy, Banda Prakash, Takkallapalli Ravinder, and P Venkatrami Reddy.
They will be filing their nominations on Tuesday, the last day for the filing of nominations under the MLA’s quota. Since the TRS has more than 100 MLAs in the 119-member assembly and the opposition parties do not have enough strength to field their candidates, all the six TRS candidates can get elected unopposed.
Among them, Gutha Sukhender Reddy and Kadiyam Srihari had served the previous term in the legislative council and they have now been nominated for the second term.
Padi Kaushik Reddy, a senior leader from Huzurabad assembly constituency, who defected from the Congress to the TRS before the recent by-elections, was earlier nominated under the Governor’s quota, but the nomination was kept in abeyance by Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan on the grounds that he does not fit into the social service category under which his name was proposed.
So, TRS president and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao decided to nominate Kaushik Reddy under the MLAs’ quota, which is also a safer option for him.
The candidature of TRS general secretary Takkallapalli Ravinder Rao was on expected lines, as being a Velama, he is closer to KCR’s family. But the selection of P Venkatrami Reddy under the MLA’s quota was a little surprising.
It was only on Monday that Reddy resigned from IAS and is yet to join the TRS formally. His name was tipped for the MLC seat under local bodies’ quota, but to his pleasant surprise, he got nominated under the MLAs’ quota.
But the biggest surprise was the selection of Banda Prakash Mudiraj from Warangal, who is presently a Rajya Sabha member. He still has three more years to complete his term in the Upper House of Parliament.
But for some strange reason, KCR decided to drop him from Rajya Sabha and make him an MLC. It is learned Prakash would soon be inducted into the cabinet soon.