Dearth of leaders, BJP waits for turncoats

HYDERABAD: The BJP appears to have zeroed in on former Amberpet MLA G Kishan Reddy, sitting party MP Bandaru Dattatreya and BJP state president K Laxman for the Secunderabad Lok Sabha, the lone seat the party holds in Telangana.


BJP Parliamentary Board has reportedly finalised the names for several Lok Sabha constituencies. The list includes N Ramchandra Rao (Malkajgiri), Janardhan Reddy (Chevella), Arvind Dharmapuri (Nizamabad) and Bandi Sanjay (Karimnagar). Apart from these, few more names were finalizsed but BJP is waiting for lists from their rivals to put a finishing touch on the candidate list.

For instance, BJP is considering the name of former MLA and Congress leader Soyam Bapu Rao from Adilabad. He tried for the Adilabad ticket from the Congress, but the party announced Ramesh Rathod as its candidate.

Interestingly, many of the candidates have unsuccessfully contested in the recently held assembly election and expressed their wish to contest in the Lok Sabha polls. As there are no strong leaders (who are also financially sound) in some constituencies, the party must either depend on former MLA contestants or leaders from other parties.

Party sources said a senior Congress leader is expected to join the BJP, seeking ticket from Nalgonda LS. The person contested the Assembly polls on a Congress ticket. Similarly, another leader and former MP from Mahbubnagar, one TRS leader and former MP from Khammam and two leaders from erstwhile Warangal district are in touch with the BJP leadership. They reportedly said that they would contest on a BJP ticket if they did not get tickets from their respective parties.

Earlier on Saturday, state president K Laxman, ex-MLA Kishan Reddy and MP Bandaru Dattatreya went to Delhi and met national president Amit Shah and submitted the list of probables. Of the 17 LS seats, five names have been finalised and the rest have been kept pending for want of suitable candidates. Amit Shah told the leaders to work hard and target at least five seats, including one in KCR’s home turf Medak.