Most TDP MLAS find themselves in first list

VIJAYAWADA: Andhra Pradesh chief minister and TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu retained most of the sitting MLAS and inducted 20 new faces in the first list of candidates for 126 assembly seats late on Thursday amid protests by ri val groups within the party.

Andhra Pradesh with 175 assembly and 25 Lok Sabha seats will go to polls on April 11. The votes will be counted on May 23.

The Telugu Desam Party with 102 seats, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) four, YSRC 67 and two Independents constituted the first assembly of the successor state of Andhra Pradesh in 2014. The TDP sent 15 members, BJP two and YSRC eight to Parliament from the state in the elections held along with the state polls that year.

The chief minister’s residence at Undavalli witnessed a flurry of activity and series of protests by party workers either seeking tickets for their leaders or opposing tickets for rival groups in the run-up to the release of the list.

Almost all the ministers got the tickets, barring a few who are either being fielded in the Lok Sabha elections or have preferred being replaced by their children.

Dalit minister KS Jawahar, who hold the excise portfolio, was shunted out of his native Kovuru in West Godavari to contest from Tiruvuru in Krishna district in the wake of mounting opposition within the ruling party over his presence in his home constituency.

Women and child welfare minister Paritala Sunitha optedfor voluntary retirement from electoral politics to make way for her son Sri Ram from her native Rapthadu. Deputy chief minister KE Krishnamurthy chose to stay out of the fray in Pattikonda this time enabling the entry of his son Syam Babu as his heir apparent.

Around 20 sitting MLAS, mostly in the reserved segments, were replaced by fresh faces.