Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu is understood to have finalised the list of his party candidates for the Lok Sabha elections and is expected to announce it on Friday or Saturday.
But according to sources, Naidu is struck with a dilemma on Visakhapatnam Lok Sabha constituency, which the Bharatiya Janata Party is insisting on contesting from.
BJP senior leader and former Rajya Sabha member G V L Narasimha Rao is strongly lobbying for the seat.
However, the TDP has more or less finalised the seat for Mathukumilli Sri Bharat, who has already started hectic election campaign in the Visakhapatnam constituency by visiting door to door. He has already put up banners and posters everywhere in the constituency.
Though Naidu has reportedly offered Rajampet Lok Sabha seat, in lieu of Visakhapatnam, to the BJP, the latter is said to be firm on the latter. This has resulted in a stalemate.
Sources said there is a possibility that Naidu might give up the Visakhapatnam seat if the BJP decides to field state BJP president Daggubati Purandeshwari, instead of G V L Narasimha Rao from this seat.
For, Purandeshwari is Naidu’s sister-in-law and he might oblige her request as she played a key role in bringing the BJP and TDP together.
Secondly, even Bharat might not object, because he happens to be son-in-law of Purandeshwari’s younger brother Nandamuri Balakrishna. So, Balakrishna might also request Bharat to drop in favour of his sister.
The TDP cadres, too, might not raise any banner of revolt as she is related to Naidu and Balakrishna. Moreover, the tag of NTR’s daughter will pre-empt them from opposing her; and so, they might cooperate with her, sources said.
Meanwhile, Naidu has okayed the candidatures of K Rammohan Naidu (Srikakulam), Kesineni Shivnath alias Chinni (Vijayawada), Magunta Raghava Reddy (Ongole), Pemmasani Chandrasekhar (Guntur), Vemireddy Prabhakar Reddy (Nellore), Lavu Sri Krishnadevarayalu (Narsaraopet), Daggumalla Prasada Rao (Chittoor-SC), Sugavasi Balasubrahmanyam (Rajampet) and Byreddy Sabari (Nandyal).
Jana Sena, meanwhile, is also likely to finalise the candidates for Kakinada and Machilipatnam parliamentary constituencies in a day or two.
