Congress Picks Rajaiah for Warangal Bypoll
Published: 01st November 2015 05:16 AM | Last Updated: 01st November 2015 06:27 AM | A+A A-
WARANGAL: The Congress party on Saturday picked up former MP Siricilla Rajaiah as its nominee for the Warangal Lok Sabha byelection. However, this development did not go down with the party cadre in the district since they pinned much hopes on former MP from Peddapally constituency G Vivek.
With their efforts turning futile to convince Vivek to contest the byelection, the AICC has finally announced S Rajaiah as its candidate on Saturday.
Rajaiah lost the seat to Kadiyam Srihari of the TRS in the last election with a margin of nearly 4 lakh votes.
According to the sources, some seniors leaders from the district have indeed favoured the candidature of the former Union minister Sarve Satyanarayana, if Vivek is not keen on contesting the election.
However, party leadership has favoured the candidature of Siricilla Rajaiah, who has reportedly stood second in the party’s internal survey. Sources said that the party state chief Utamm Kumar Reddy and other senior leaders were not much in favour of Sarve Satyanarayana.Two other aspirants - Rajarapu Pratap and Dr Vijayamarama Rao - have also failed to impress upon the party high command.
However, the local cadre were not happy with the party’s decision as they feel that Rajaiah was not enjoying the popularity among the voters as he had allegedly failed to develop the constituency.
“We have expected a new face, but the party has decided otherwise. The party workers are also of the opinion that Rajaiah has never bothered about the party workers,” said a senior leader from the Congress.
AICC general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi announced the candidature of Sircilla Rajaiah for the ensuing Warangal Lok Sabha bypolls on Saturday. Though, the Congress considered the names of Vivek, S Satyanarayana, it has zeroed in on Rajaiah.
Sircilla Rajaiah, who did his B.Sc (Agriculture), worked as the chief executive officer (CEO) of the zilla parishad office and Dy Commissioner at commissioner of PR & RD, before joining politics.
He won the Warangal MP seat in 2009 election as Congress nominee, but lost the same in 2014 elections.
While the Left parties have announced Prof Gali Vinod Kumar, TRS has announced Pasunuri Dayakar as its candidate for the Warangal byelection on Friday.
But the TDP-BJP combine is yet to finalise its candidate for the byelection. An NRI doctor P Devaiah may be announced as the TDP-BJP nominee.