hyderabad
The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leadership has named candidates for Khammam, Mahabubabad, Peddapalli and Karimnagar Parliamentary (Lok Sabha) seats — Nama Nageswara Rao, Maloth Kavitha, Koppula Eshwar and Boinapalli Vinod Kumar, respectively — on Monday.
Names of the candidates were announced by party president and former chief minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao after a meeting with the party leaders from Khammam and Mahabubabad Parliamentary constituencies, at the Telangana Bhavan here on Monday. He had held a similar meeting with the party leaders of Peddapalli and Karimnagar constituencies on Sunday.
The party holds the Khammam, Mahabubabad and Peddapalli seats but B. Venkatesh Netha, the sitting MP from Peddapalli, has switched his loyalty to Congress. Similarly, BRS sitting MPs from Zaheerabad (B.B. Patil) and Nagarkurnool (P. Ramulu) deserted the party last week and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The BJP has named Mr. Patil and Mr. Ramulu’s son P. Bharath as its candidates for the two seats already.
With the Congress and BJP intensifying their efforts to weaken the BRS as much as they can by weaning away its sitting MPs, MLAs and MLCs and other leaders ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the BRS leadership has stepped up its activity and decided to launch its campaign from Karimnagar on March 12, and hold meetings with the leaders of the remaining 13 Parliamentary constituencies to finalise the candidates.
It was being speculated that Mr. Nageswara Rao and Ms. Kavitha were also approached by the BJP leadership, which has been finding it difficult to scout for “strong” candidates. However, the BRS leadership pre-empted any such efforts by retaining them as the party candidates by holding a meeting with them as well as those of Assembly segments falling in the two Parliamentary constituencies.
Mr. Chandrasekhar Rao held consultations with sitting MPs K. Keshava Rao, V. Ravichandra, Mr. Nageswara Rao and Ms. Kavitha along with BRS working president K.T. Rama Rao, former Ministers T. Harish Rao, P. Ajay Kumar, Satyavathi Rathod, former MP A. Seetharam Naik, sitting MLCs and all former legislators of the party in Khammam and Mahabubabad Parliamentary constituencies.
Mr. Harish Rao also held separate meetings with Khammam and Mahabubabad candidates and party leaders of two Lok Sabha constituencies to discuss the strategy to be followed for the campaign with a focus on the failures of the Congress government, particularly how it has failed to keep its pre-poll promises.
