ELURU: Selection of mayoral candidate for Eluru Municipal Corporation (SC reserved) remains elusive for the Telugu Desam Party (TDP). Lack of consensus among different warring intra-party groups seems to have forced the party to go ahead with election campaign without announcing its mayoral candidate.

The high-power three-member committee comprising the former Assembly Speaker, K. Pratibha Bharati, the Rajya Sabha member, Vanga Geeta, and the party SC Cell convener, Varla Ramaiah, is yet to achieve a breakthrough on selecting the candidate even after the nomination phase.

At least four groups headed by the party's city president, Badeti Kotarama Rao (Bhujji), M.R.D. Balaram, and the former MLAs -- Ambika Krishna and Maradani Ranga Rao -- are understood to be engaged in an internal fight to grab the mayor post for their respective groups. Accordingly, all the group leaders have deployed their prospective mayoral candidates in various divisions expecting some miracle to happen in the last minute in their favour.

Consequently, the high-power committee reportedly left the issue of selection of mayoral candidate to the discretion of the party high command and got content with only the exercise of selecting candidates for all the 50 divisions.

Going by the violent attack on the district party office here on Monday by the disgruntled ticket losers, the selection of candidate for the mayor post is unlikely to be a smooth exercise for the TDP. The TDP leadership, however, claims that delay in selection of the candidate for the mayor post is only a part of the party's election strategy.

Congress choice

Meanwhile, the Congress is far ahead as for as selection of the mayoral candidate is concerned. The Congress has fielded a medical practitioner, Vallapu Ajayachandra, for the post well in advance.

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