YSR Congress party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy, who has mastered the art of working out poll strategies and selecting candidates after working out all caste calculations, has picked up winning horses for the forthcoming elections to three MLC seats in the graduates’ constituencies.
Though there are eight months to go for the MLC elections, Jagan has announced candidates for the three seas late on Monday night, soon after the workshop on “Gadapa gadaku prabhutvam” programme at Tadepalli.
For Visakhapatnam-Vizianagaram-Srikakulam graduates’ constituency, the YSRC president picked up Brahmin YSRC leader from Visakhapatnam (South) and AP Brahmin Corporation chairman Sitamraju Sudhakar.
The seat is presently represented by P V N Madhav of Bharatiya Janata Party who had won it because of the alliance with the Telugu Desam Party in 2017.
For Anantapur-Kadapa and Kurnool graduates’ constituency, the YSRC president finalised the candidature of Vennapusa Ravindra Reddy, son of sitting MLA Vennapusa Gopal Reddy. Obviously, a Reddy candidate is most suitable for this seat.
Thirdly, for the Chittoor-Prakasam-Nellore graduates’ constituency, Jagan has finalised the candidature of Pernati Shyam Prasad Reddy, a close associate of Kakani Goverdhan Reddy. He had defected from the TDP to YSRC in 2020.
The selection of Sudhakar for the MLC seat from north coastal Andhra has cleared the decks for sitting Viskahapatnam (south) MLA Vasupalli Ganesh, who also defected from the TDP to YSRC a couple of years ago.
However, Sudhakar, said to be a close follower of YSRC general secretary and MP V Vijay Sai Reddy, had been claiming that he would be the party candidate for the next assembly elections from Visakhapatnam (South) and has been dominating the party affairs there.
This has upset Vasupalli and though he was appointed as party in-charge of the constituency, he had been feeling neglected. A couple of months ago, he had quit the party post, saying he was facing insults in the party. He wrote a letter to this effect to YSRC in-charge of Visakhapatnam district Y V Subba Reddy.
However, when the issue was brought to the notice of Jagan, he said he would take care of the issue. So by making Sudhakar as the MLC, he has virtually cleared the decks for Vasupalli, unless of course, the latter wants to return to the parent party.
