Telangana Rashtra Samithi president and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has almost finalised the name of his personal aide Joginapalli Santosh Rao for the Rajya Sabha seat, elections for which are being held in the third week of this month.
The TRS will get all the three RS seats from Telangana, as the other opposition parties – the Congress, the TDP and the BJP do not have enough strength. Of the three, KCR is learnt to have approved the name of Santosh on Monday evening.
Santosh, who was recently elevated to the post of TRS secretary, is closely related to KCR. His mother happens to be the own sister of KCR’s wife Shobha.
He has been maintaining a very low profile right from the beginning and was a personal assistant to KCR’s son K T Rama Rao before becoming the personal assistant of KCR, taking care of his appointments.
Subsequently, Santosh has been entrusted with the responsibility of managing the affairs of T-News, the official television channel of the TRS in the capacity of its managing director.
He also indirectly owns Ace Media, a production house which has been given the contract of telecasting all the government programmes and even assembly live coverage.
KCR knows that by sending Santosh to Rajya Sabha, he will once again have to face the criticism of encouraging nepotism. But party sources say KCR cannot find a more reliable person than Santosh, if the former has to play a bigger role in national politics.
“If KCR goes to Delhi, he badly needs Santosh to do all the lobbying and ground work. That is precisely he is sending Santosh to Rajya Sabha,” sources said.
Earlier, there was a talk that KCR will field Santosh in the next assembly elections from Vemulawada. But now, he has changed his mind and decided to send him to Rajya Sabha.
