Telugu Desam Party headed by former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu and Jana Sena Party headed by power star Pawan Kalyan finally concluded their seat-sharing agreement and announced the first list of 118 names for the upcoming assembly elections.
As per the agreement, the TDP will allocate 24 assembly seats and three Lok Sabha seats to the Jana Sena Party. They are still awaiting the response from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on joining the alliance.
“We shall take a call after seeing the response from the BJP,” Naidu said in a joint press conference with Pawan at his Undavalli residence on Saturday.
While Naidu released the list of 94 MLAs, Pawan released only five names and said he would announce the remaining 19 names shortly.
Naidu said the list marks a significant shift in Andhra Pradesh's political landscape, embodying an unprecedented infusion of fresh faces, youth candidates, representation from the BC community, and women candidates.
Out of 94 in TDP’s list, there are as many as 23 newcomers to contest the elections. The list includes 28 candidates with a post-graduate degrees, 50 candidate with graduate degrees, 3 doctors, 2 Ph.D, and 1 IAS Officer, Naidu claimed.
He said the selection of candidates was done after considering the opinion of more than 1.33 crore people through interactive voice response system. By embracing crowdsourcing, the TDP-JSP alliance aims to decentralize power, placing the aspirations and voices of the people of Andhra at the forefront of their political agenda, he said.
He, however, did not disclose the caste-wise break-up of the candidates. The TDP list has more or less predictable names, being in circulation periodically. However, there are also some surprises.
Out of the four YSRCP MLAs who defected to the TDP, only Kotamreddy Sridhar Reddy was given ticket from Nellore (rural). While no decision was taken with regard to Venkatagiri represented by Anam Ramnarayana Reddy, the other two – Mekapati Chandrasekhar Reddy and Undavalli Sridevi have not been considered for the party tickets.
No decision has been taken with regard to the party tickets to seniors like Ganta Srinivasa Rao, Gorantla Buchaiah Chowdary and Bandaru Satyanarayana Murthy etc,
With regard to Jana Sena Party, only five names were announced, that of – Nadendla Manohar (Tenali), Lokam Madhavi (Nellimarla), Bathula Balaramakrishna (Rajanagaram), Pantham Nanaji (Kakinada-rural) and Konathala Ramakrishna (Anakapalle).
