CM, Botsa leave for Delhi to finalise MLC candidates

Hyderabad, March 8: Senior Congress leaders including Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy left for the national capital on Friday morning to discuss and finalise with the Congress High Command the candidates for the MLC elections.

Deputy Chief Minister Damodar Rajanarasimha and PCC President Botsa Satyanarayana also reached Delhi on Friday. Meanwhile, intense lobbying has been going on in New Delhi for the 10 MLC seats that are going for polls.

Going by the strength in the Legislative Assembly, the Congress is all set to win five seats while TDP will bag three with one seat. The YSR Congress party will win one seat while the TRS is lobbying hard to win one seat.

According to sources, there are almost 200 aspirants for the nine seats including four seats to be nominated by the governor. The elections, if necessary, will be held on March 21 while the governor’s nominations may happen by the end of the month.

The list of aspirants include former ministers, former MLAs, former MLCs, former mayors, APCC office-bearers, former PCC presidents and retired IAS officers. The Congress High Command is most likely to finalise the candidates by today evening or latest by tomorrow.

According to sources, the nomination of former minister Mohammad Ali Shabbir is almost certain. The other contenders include former speaker Agarala Eswar Reddy, state biodiversity board chairman R Hampaiah, former ministes Kotagiri Vidyadhar Rao and K Pushpaleela, former MLAs Mallu Ravi, D Venkateswarlu, Ghanta Murali Krishna, Chadalawada Jairam Babu, Buragadda Vedavyas, R Gopinath, Bijjam Parthasarathi Reddy,V Sivaram Krishna Rao, M Kamalamma, former MP P V Rajeswara Rao, former MLCs Reddigari Venkatrama Reddy and Boodati Radha Krishan, former mayor Banda Karthika Reddy and former IAS officer C Umamalleswara Rao.