HYDERABAD: Excitement is palpable in the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) circles as Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao is likely to announce the first list of party candidates for the upcoming Assembly elections on Monday at the BRS Bhavan here in the city. Several party leaders are on the edge as they are not sure whether they will find their names on the list or not.
The BRS chief, after an extensive exercise, is learnt to have finalised the list of candidates for almost 90 per cent of Assembly constituencies. Rao got surveys conducted on the performance of party MLAs before finalising the list. He is expected to deal with the remaining 10 per cent of seats where the candidates are weak or bogged down by internal bickerings later.
On September 6, 2018, Rao after dissolving the Assembly announced the list of candidates for 105 Assembly segments. The party supremo, who reportedly considers ‘6’ as his lucky number, had chosen September 6 for announcing the candidates for 105 (again 6, if the digits 1 and 5 are added up as per numerology).
As the CM dissolved the Assembly after 51 months (5+1=6), BRS leaders are expecting the party chief to announce the list of candidates in such a way as to satisfy his numerology beliefs. Rao, who is known to be scrupulous about auspicious timings, had chosen Sravana Masam to dissolve the Assembly in 2018 and went into elections. This time also he is set to announce the candidates’ list on Panchami in Sravana Masam.
Rao who got a survey conducted in all the 119 Assembly segments over the past six months is learnt to have alerted the MLAs who face bleak prospects to work to strengthen their position. He is likely to give another chance to the MLAs who scored 35 per cent marks in the surveys. The CM got feedback on the performance of his government and the MLAs concerned from 40 per cent of people in the survey. According to the core group in the BRS, the party president is likely to replace candidates in 10-12 Assembly segments.
Meanwhile, differences came to the fore in the constituencies where sitting MLAs are likely to be replaced by the BRS chief in the Monday list. In Amberpet, Jangaon, Bhupalapally, Kothagudem, Khanapur, Station Ghanpur, Kothagudem, Uppal, Bellampalli, Illandu and other segments the supporters of the sitting MLAs protested demanding that their leaders be renominated for the upcoming elections. Some sitting MLAs and ticket aspirants are flocking to Finance Minister Harish Rao and MLC K Kavitha, seeking support for their candidature. But the two leaders are learnt to have said that the decision taken by the party supremo would be final.