As expected, former Union minister of state for science and technology Y S Chowdary, popularly known as Sujana Chowdary for promoting Sujana Group of Industries, has been given the ticket by the Bharatiya Janata Party for Vijayawada (West) assembly seat.
Sujana’s name figures in the list of 10 candidates finalised by the BJP for the seats allotted to it as part of alliance with the Telugu Desam Party and Jana Sena Party.
Sujana, who was a two-time Rajya Sabha member from Telugu Desam Party, defected from the TDP to the BJP along with another Rajya Sabha member C M Ramesh, soon after the TDP headed by N Chandrababu Naidu lost power to YSR Congress party president Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy in May 2019 elections.
While Sujana completed his RS term in April 2002, Ramesh will be relinquishing the RS seat in the next month. Ramesh has been given the BJP ticket for Lok Sabha elections from Anakapalli.
While the BJP rewarded these two defectors, it completely ignored hardcore BJP leader and former party president Somu Veerraju.
He wanted Rajahmundry rural seat, but was not given the same as part of alliance and a strong resistance from BJP state president Daggubati Purandeshwari, who is contesting as the MP candidate from Rajahmundry.
BJP also named its national general secretary Y Satya Kumar for Dharmavaram assembly seat in Sri Satya Sai district.
Others who were named in the list of candidates for the assembly elections are: former state ministers Kamineni Srinivas Rao (Kaikaluru) and C Adinarayana Reddy (Jammalamadugu), former MLA P Vishnu Kumar Raju (Visakhapatnam-East), educationist N Eshwar Rao (Etcherla), Pangi Raja Rao (Araku Valley-ST), M Shiva Krishnam Raju (Anaparthy), Bojja Roshanna (Badvel-SC) and Dr P V Parthasarthy (Adoni).
The name of another hardcore BJP leader S Vishnu Vardhan Reddy is also missing in the list of candidates.
