VIJAYAWADA : A day after the BJP announced its candidates for 10 Assembly segments, dissidence within the alliance came to the fore in a couple of constituencies. Aspirants from the TDP have made it clear that they would not support the BJP candidates in the two constituencies, with the saffron party also facing trouble from within in one of the segments.
In Anaparthi, former TDP MLA Nallamilli Ramakrishna Reddy has raised a banner of revolt. His followers burnt TDP flags and a cycle, the party’s election symbol, on Thursday protesting the allocation of the seat to the BJP.
In Dharmavaram, former minister Paritala Sunitha’s son Sriram is unlikely to support the candidature of the BJP’s Y Satya Kumar. Even saffron party leader Varadapuram Suri is unlikely to support Satya Kumar’s candidature, sources said.
The BJP was allotted Anaparthi, a segment that it had not even sought. The decision was a surprise to many party leaders who had asked for the Rajamahendravaram City constituency.
The TDP, on the other hand, had officially announced Ramakrishna Reddy as its candidate. The sudden announcement that the BJP will contest there came as a shock to the former MLA too.
“The party allocated the seat to me first and withdrew it later. I was not consulted by the party before the seat was allocated to the BJP,” he lamented. The former legislator said he had fought against the corruption of the local MLA for the past five years relentlessly.
Suri in Delhi to lobby for Dharmavaram seat: Srcs
“I was arrested and police registered cases against my family members. I did not yield to the pressure and continued the fight against the anti-people politics of the YSRC in Anaparthi,” he said and added he was shocked after learning about the allotment of the seat to the BJP. Ramakrishna Reddy said he would wait for four days before taking a decision on his political future and not disappoint his followers.
In Dharmavaram, BJP national secretary Y Satya Kumar, who was given the ticket, is likely to face opposition from within his own party as well as from ally TDP.
Gonuguntla Suryanarayana, popularly known as Varadapuram Suri, aspired for the seat and was a strong contender. He won as an MLA on a TDP ticket in 2014 and later shifted to the BJP. Suri is said to have the support of TDP boss N Chandrababu Naidu too and was campaigning in the constituency much before the alliance took shape.
Meanwhile, former minister Paritala Sunitha’s son Paritala Sriram also wanted to contest from Dharmavaram and his followers have staged protests over the allocation of the seat to the BJP. Meanwhile, sources said Suri is camping in Delhi to lobby with the party high command to bag the Dharmavaram ticket.
