Many Guntur leaders in race for MLC ticket

Amaravati: As the elections for the Krishna-Guntur Graduates Constituency for AP Legislative Council is going to be held in February next year, the aspirants in the ruling TDP have intensified their lobbying in Amaravati. 

The party leaders including Gottipati Ramakrishna Prasad, serving as party secretary, Dr Pawan Donepudi who walked with party president N Chandrababu Naidu during his Padayatra, Rayapati Srinivasa Rao, former MLA and brother of present Narasaraopet Lok Sabha member Rayapati Sambasiva Rao, Dasari Raja Master, chairman of State Libraries, Pothineni Srinivasa Rao, party in-charge for Mangalagiri Assembly constituency, BV Ramana, party senior leader and others are in race for the party ticket. 

Ramakrishna Prasad and Pawan Donepudi belong to Krishna district, while the rest are from Guntur. Chigurupati Varaprasad won the seat in 2007 MLC elections but lost in 2013 to Progressive Democratic Front (PDF) candidate Boddu Nageswara Rao.  

TDP leaders from Guntur district have been requesting Naidu to give an opportunity to the district this time since ticket was given to Krishna district leaders for the last two times. This is the third election for the seat after constitution of council. 

Accepting their request, the party chief is said to have asked Guntur party leaders to identify a suitable candidate with consensus. Meanwhile, Naidu directed the party leaders to focus on registration of graduates in both the districts as voters. The party high command has been hoping that the TDP would win this time since new votes are being added to the existing ones. 

A senior leader in the party said majority of secretariat employees, commissionerates and other Heads of the Departments staff are also being registered as graduate voters in both Krishna and Guntur districts.

The PDF and YSRCP leaders are also working on the registration of graduates as voters in these two districts to give a tough competition to the TDP in 2019.

As the elections for Krishna-Guntur Graduates Constituency are going to be held just before the general elections, all political parties are taking it seriously. These election could be considered as a prelude to both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha elections in AP, a senior TDP leader observed.