Rahul for rejig of Seemandhra list

Hyderabad: The Congress high command is likely to spring surprises in the list of candidates for Seemandhra Assembly and LS seats.

The meeting held at 10 Janpath, which was attended by the AICC president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi along with APCC president N Raghuveera Reddy, campaign committee chairman K Chiranjeevi, former APCC president Botcha Satyanarayana, AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh and others, has not yet taken a final decision in regard to about 40 MLAs. The party high command will release the list in two installments – one on Sunday and the other on Monday.

According to sources, Rahul Gandhi told the party leaders to go in for social engineering and see that more number of BCs and youth were accommodated in the list of candidates. The party which feels that that it has an uphill task in Seemandhra region feels that it should strengthen the party in such a way that it emerges as a major force in the region by the time the state goes to elections in 2014. In view of this, the central election committee of the Congress party met again at AICC headquarters to rework the list of candidates so that it can be fine-tuned as per the directions of Rahul Gandhi.

It is learnt that the names of about 135 MLAs and 20 LS candidates has been cleared. The election committee will now try to accommodate more number of BC, minority and youth in the remaining 40 Assembly seats, a source in Delhi said. However, as far as senior party leaders are concerned, sources said that they would be retained.

It is understood that for Lok Sabha, the names of V Kishore Chandra Deo (Araku), Killi Kruparani (Srikakulam), Botcha Jhansi (Vizianagaram), Butchi Maheswara Rao (Amalapuram), Panabaka Lakshmi (Bapatla), Chinta Mohan (Tirupati), B Y Ramaiah (Nandyal), Thota Vijayalakshmi (Anakapalle), Kanmuri Bapiraju (Narsapuram), Devineni Avinash (Vijayawada), D Pawan Kumar (Ongole), Kandula Durgesh (Rajahmundry), Vakati Narayana Reddy (Nellore), Sai Pratap (Rajampet) and K Narayana Reddy (Nellore) have been finalised and the candidates have been informed about it. Following this, leaders like Kanimuri Bapiraju and a few others have filed their nominations.

For Assembly,the APCC has is learnt to have cleared the names of N Raghuveera Reddy (Penugonda), M Mallikarjun (Vinukonda), Kanna Lakshminarayana (Guntur-West), Ch Venkat Rao (Kavali), Sudhakar Reddy (Ongole), Sake Sailjanath (Singanamala), Nandendla Manohar (Tenali), Mastan Valli (Guntur-East), AC Subba Reddy (Nellore-urban) and Anam Vijaykumar Reddy (Nellore-rural). The name of Anam Ramanarayana Reddy from Atmakur constituency is also said to have been cleared.