VIJAYAWADA: The BJP on Wednesday announced the names of 10 candidates for the upcoming Assembly elections. The party gave six of the 10 seats to OC leaders, including three from the Kamma community, two to BCs and one each to leaders from the SC and ST communities.
At least four of the candidates were associated with the TDP or its top leaders in the past. The party allotted tickets to P Vishnu Kumar Raju and Kamineni Srinivasa Rao, who had won the 2014 elections. However, senior leaders like PVN Madhav, S Vishnuvardhan Reddy and Varadapuram Suri have been denied a chance to contest.
Y Satyanarayana Chowdary, popularly known as Sujana Chowdary, will contest from Vijayawada West. He tried his best for the Vijayawada Lok Sabha seat but the alliance partner, the TDP, was reluctant to give the seat away which it won in 2014 and 2019. Sujana Chowdary later pitched for Eluru Lok Sabha seat where BJP’s State secretary Garapati Sitaramanjaneya (Tapana) Chowdary has been working for quite some time.
As the Rajamahendravaram seat went to Kamma leader, D Purandeswari, the party reportedly denied Eluru seat to a leader from the same community and both Tapana Chowdary and Sujana Chowdary were asked to choose an Assembly segment.
Sujana Chowdary picked Vijayawada West, while Tapana Chowdary reportedly wanted to contest from Kaikalur. Kamineni Srinivasa Rao earlier won Kaikalur and the party has decided to field him this time too. Former minister C Adinarayana Reddy, who was earlier with the TDP, was given the Jammalamadugu Assembly seat. BJP national secretary Y Satya Kumar, who reportedly sought the Anantapur Assembly seat, was allotted Dharmavaram denying former MLA from the segment, Varadapuram Suri, a chance to contest.
The surprise pick was of Bojja Roshanna from Badvel SC-reserved seat. Roshanna, who was working as a deputy engineer in the irrigation department at Nandyal, took VRS recently and joined the TDP. He tried to get the TDP ticket from Badvel with the support of former MLA K Vijayamma, but with the seat going into BJP’s kitty, he joined the BJP two days back. The party gave the ticket to Dr PV Parthasarathi, who belongs to OBC (Valmiki) community from Adoni in Kurnool district. He is the founder and CMD of Partha Dental Care and Partha Cosmetology Private Limited which runs 130 plus dental, skin, and hair clinics across AP, Telangana, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
From Anaparthy, the party fielded M Shiva Krishnam Raju, who worked as a jawan. He hails from Ramavaram village and is a committed RSS and BJP worker. Tribal leader Pangi Raja Rao will contest from Araku Valley (ST) while P Vishnu Kumar Raju retained his Visakhapatnam North seat.
