Like his Andhra Pradesh counterpart N Chandrababu Naidu, Telangana Rashtra Samithi president and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao also sprang a major surprise in the selection of candidates for the ensuing Rajya Sabha elections.
If Naidu selected his close confidant and sitting Rajya Sabha member C M Ramesh for one of the two seats the TDP has got, KCR has picked up his close aide Joginapalli Santosh Kumar as the TRS nominee for the RS polls.
However, for the remaining two RS seats, the TRS president took everybody by surprise by selecting two OBC candidates, as against both the forward case by the TDP chief.
As promised, KCR picked up a leader from Yadava community – Badugula Ligaiah Yadav from Nalgonda for one of the two seats and Banda Prakash Mudiraj from Warangal for the remaining seat.
In fact, both the leaders are unexpected candidates surprisingly chosen by the TRS president.
Lingaiah Yadav, who had been the TDP party president of Nalgonda for more than 15 years, contested against TRS candidate Neti Vidyasagar in the MLC elections under local bodies’ quota, but lost the elections. Later, he joined the TRS in 2015, but has not got any party or government post.
Similarly, Banda Prakash was a Congress party leader for a long time and a strong loyalist of late Y S Rajasekhar Reddy. He had even served as the member of the Congress party manifesto committee. Subsequently, he too joined the TRS and now managed to get the RS nomination.
Several other contenders like Jaipal Yadav, Tula Uma and Nomula Narsimhaiah, who were also expecting the RS seat are now disgruntled.
