The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Harikrishna may be TDP candidate for Rajya Sabha

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Thursday, Mar 13, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Harikrishna may be TDP candidate for Rajya Sabha

Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD: Hectic lobbying witnessed for the last few days in the Telugu Desam Party camp for the lone Rajya Sabha seat it could win, has almost come to an end with party president N. Chandrababu Naidu’s decision to nominate his brother-in-law Harikrishna.

Mr. Naidu is believed to have made up his mind after holding a final round of consultations with the party MLAs in the Telugu Desam Legislature Party office here on Wednesday. He is expected to make the formal announcement about Mr. Harikrishna’s candidature on March 14.

Two of the aspirants for the ticket, Khambampati Ramamohan Rao and Nannapaneni Rajakumari, who were present in the Assembly lobbies when the decision became known, were visibly unhappy over having missed the chance.

There were some like former Assembly Speaker Yanamala Ramakrishnudu who openly opted for promotion to the Upper House to give a chance to the youngsters to enter Assembly. He also represents a Backward Class community. Besides, P. Chandrasekhar and N. V. Ramana banked both on their BC status and Telangana card.

All three seemed to have taken a chance with the party’s conscious decision to consolidate its strength among Backward Classes. Yet another, Umareddy Venkateswarlu who belongs to Kapu community staked the claim, given the threat from mega star Chiranjeevi’s impending entry into politics.

With so many claimants for one seat, Mr. Naidu was left with unenviable task of picking a candidate. And that was the main reason why he opted for Mr. Harikrishna as there would be no question of anyone opposing him, hailing as he were from the first family — party’s founder N. T. Rama Rao.

No partyman could now accuse Mr. Naidu of showing a bias to this or that section. When it comes to the claim by BCs, the party sources pointed out that the TD Parliamentary Party leader K. Yerran Naidu and TDLP deputy leaders, T. Devender Goud and Mr. Ramakrishnudu, belonged to these sections.

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