Congress names Andhra candidates, Sharmila to take on cousin in family bastion of Kadapa

Andhra Pradesh will see simultaneous Assembly and Lok Sabha elections in the fourth phase on May 13.

The Kadapa Lok Sabha seat has been held by members of the YSR family since 1989. While YSR won the seat thrice (1989, 1991 and 1998), Vivekananda was victorious twice (1999 and 2004). Jagan was elected MP from the seat in 2009 and won the 2012 bypoll held for the seat as a YSRCP candidate. It has been held by Avinash since 2014.

The Congress’s decision to field Sharmila from Kadapa assumes significance as she has alleged that Vivekananda’s insistence on fielding her or her mother Y S Vijayalakshmi instead of Avinash from the seat led to his murder.

Vivekananda was found in a pool of blood in his house in Pulivendula on March 15, 2019, just ahead of the simultaneous Assembly and Lok Sabha polls at the time. The CBI, which is probing the case, had accused Avinash and his father Y S Bhaskar Reddy of hatching the murder conspiracy, erasing evidence and sheltering the accused, in its chargesheet.

The Congress has fielded former Union minister M M Pallam Raju from the Kakinada Lok Sabha seat, which he has won thrice in 1989, 2004 and 2009. He will be up against Chalamalasetti Sunil of the YSRCP and Uday Srinivas Tangella of the BJP-Telugu Desam Party (TDP)-JanaSena Party (JSP) combine.

Former Andhra Pradesh Congress chief Gidugu Rudra Raju will be the Congress candidate from Rajahmundry Lok Sabha seat, where he will lock horns with Guduri Srinivasulu of the YSRCP. State BJP chief D Purandeswari is the NDA candidate from the seat.

In Bapatla, the grand old party has fielded former Rajya Sabha MP and Union minister J D Seelam, where he will take on NDA’s T Krishna Prasad (TDP) and YSRCP’s Nandigama Suresh Babu.

Bigwigs like former Andhra Pradesh Congress chief Sake Sailajanath, ex-MLA Shaik Mastan Vali and Shaik Mahboob Basha, who founded the Anna YSR Congress are among candidates declared for the state polls.

Sailajanath will be the party’s candidate from Singanamala in Anantapur district and will take on Bandaru Sravani of the TDP and M Veeranjaneyulu of the YSRCP.

Vali will contest the Guntur East Assembly seat which he won in 2009 and will be up against Sheikh Noor Fatima of the YSRCP and Mohammad Nazeer of the TDP.

The Congress so far has nominated eight Muslims and 14 candidates from the Reddy community.