MLC BY-polls: AICC chooses Mahesh Goud & Balmoor Venkat

Hyderabad: The AICC on Wednesday announced Mahesh Kumar Goud Bomma and Venkat Narsing Rao Balmoor as Congress candidates for the January 29 byelection to the Telangana Legislative Council. The name of Mahesh Kumar Goud propped up on Wednesday in place of TPCC general secretary Addanki Dayakar. Dayakar it is being said may be asked to contest for Lok Sabha elections from North Telangana.

Members of the legislative council are elected by MLAs. The two seats in the legislative council fell vacant after BRS MLCs Kadiyam Srihari and P Koushik Reddy resigned when they got elected to the legislative assembly in the recent polls.

While the BRS has decided not to field any candidate, the Congress candidates will be filing nominations on Thursday, the last day of nominations.

Mahesh Goud a native of Rahathnagar village under Bheemgal Mandal of Nizamabad district is 58 year old leader and has been a loyal party leader since his youth. He held positions as District NSUI president and later as State NSUI president under United AP.

Later also served as Secretary Indian Youth Congress. Mahesh Kumar Goud is the working president of the state Congress, In 2014, he contested for Assembly polls in the newly formed State of Telangana representing Nizamabad (Urban). The Nizamabad leader is amongst one of the top BC leaders who had expected a party ticket from Nizamabad (Urban), but owing the party’s political equations during Assembly polls, he was denied. Venkat Balmoor, is from Velama community and is a medical doctor, and president of NSUI in Telangana. Venkat contested and lost the bypoll to Huzurabad assembly seat in 2021 He hogged the limelight at national level after Rahul Gandhi visited him at Chanchalguda Central jail in 2022 following his arrest for staging a protest at Osmania University. He was sent to prison along with over a dozen NSUI state leaders.

While it was expected that the AICC would also announce the two names for MLC under Governors quota, the decision has not been taken. Meanwhile, it appears that the Governor is of the view that no names under the quota should be entertained since the case related to the Governor’s rejection of MLC recommendations made by the cabinet when BRS was in power is in High Court.