KCR fields 4, leaves one for pal Asaduddin

Hyderabad: Chief Minister and TRS chief K Chandrashekar Rao on Friday announced four candidates for the MLC seats and left one for party’s ally All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen. As per the strength in the Assembly, the TRS is slated to get all five seats easily and hence the Chief Minister has declared candidates for four seats and left out one seat for ally MIM. Home Minister Md Mahmood Ali gets second chance to fight the MLC polls.

As expected, the TRS president has made his political secretary Sheri Subhash Reddy as party candidate. Subhash Reddy is presently holding the post of Telangana State Mineral Development Corporation (TSMDC) and is a close aide of the Chief Minister. KCR has also named former MLA Satyavati Rathod, who joined the TRS leaving the Telugu Desam. However, she could not be accommodated in the Assembly elections and was assured of giving a post at the right time. 

Facing criticism of not including a woman candidate in the council of ministers, the TRS chief decided to allocate a seat to a woman candidate. State Kuruma Sangham president Y Mallesham also has been declared party candidate. The CM had promised earlier to allocate a seat to the Kuruma community as the party had given an MP seat to the Yadav community. Interestingly, the Chief Minister has decided to leave one seat to the Majlis party. 

The TRS and Majlis have been friendly parties in Telangana. Though there was no alliance, but the MIM has supported the TRS in Assembly elections. The TRS leaders are saying that the party would win 16 out of the 17 Lok Sabha seats in Telangana and the other would be won by MIM.  The Election Commission had released the schedule for filling up five seats of the Council through members of the Legislative Assembly. The last date for filing nominations is February 28. 

Scrutiny of nominations would take place on March 1 and the election, if required, would take place on March 12 between 9 am and 4 pm and results would be announced on the same day. Meanwhile, MIM president and MP Asaduddin Owaisi thanked KCR for leaving one seat to his party. He said the TRS-MIM combine would win all the 17 Lok Sabha seats in the general election.