If speculations doing rounds in political circles are to be believed, YSR Congress party is likely to field a fifth candidate in the forthcoming Rajya Sabha elections to defeat the official nominee of the ruling Telugu Desam Party.
This month, four Rajya Sabha seats will fall vacant in Andhra Pradesh – that of Jairam Ramesh, Y S Chowdary (Sujana Chowdary), JD Seelam and Nirmala Sitaraman.
There are 175 MLAs in the Assembly and according to the revised calculations after the bifurcation of the erstwhile united Andhra Pradesh, each candidate requires first preferential votes of at least 37 MLAs.
Going by the party strength in the Assembly, the TDP has 102 seats. With the defection of eight MLAs from the YSR Congress party and the support of four BJP MLAs, the total strength of the ruling party will be 114 seats. So, it can comfortably win three Rajya Sabha seats.
On the other hand, the YSR Congress party whose original strength was 67 and present strength is 59 (after defection of eight MLAs), can win the fourth one comfortably.
However, the YSR Congress party is still left with 22 votes and it requires another 15 first preferential votes to win the fourth seat to defeat the TDP official nominee. The TDP does not have the luxury of fielding an extra candidate.
If YSRC president Jagan can work out his strategies well, he can split the TDP votes, besides luring the BJP votes as well (for that, he has to come to an understanding with the Modi government at the Centre). In the event of a tight fight, YSR Congress can depend on the second preferential votes.
Source said Jagan might effectively play the Kapu card to split the TDP and BJP votes. While he has assured his trusted lieutenant Vijay Sai Reddy of RS nomination, he might field Kapu strongman Mudragada Padmanbham as the fifth candidate to garner the support of Kapu MLAs’ votes.
Though it is a secret ballot, he might also issue a whip to the party MLAs to bring pressure on defected MLAs to support Mudragada, sources said.
It remains to be seen whether Jagan has the guts to work out this strategy or not.
