Former Union Minister and senior BJP leader Bandaru Dattatreya has been denied another chance to contest from Secunderabad Lok Sabha constituency for the forthcoming elections with his fellow partyman and former MLA G. Kishan Reddy getting the ticket in the candidates list announced in New Delhi on Thursday evening.
Mr. Dattatreya won four times from this constituency (1991-96, 98-99, 99-04 & 2014-19) and has been seeking another term, although he was unceremoniously dumped from the Union Cabinet where he was the Labour Minister with no explanations given in September 2017 despite being the sole party MP from Telangana.
BJP chief K. Laxman was also a contender for the seat but the party leadership decided on Kishan Reddy. The latter has been a three-time MLA and had lost the recent Assembly polls from Amberpet constituency by a margin of a little over 1,000 votes to TRS candidate K. Venkatesh.
Another senior leader and city president N. Ramchander Rao has been chosen for the Malkajgiri constituency. Incidentally, he too lost in the recent polls from the constituency of the same name to the TRS candidate M. Hanumanth Rao. Altogether, the party has named candidates for 10 seats and notable among them is former Congress minister D.K. Aruna who got the nod for Mahbubnagar constituency after she joined the party just two days ago.
Former PCC president, minister and now TRS MP D. Srinivas son - D. Arvind, has been chosen form the Nizamabad constituency from where Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s daughter, K. Kavitha, will be seeking re-election.
Other candidates
Other candidates declared are: Karimnagar – Bandi Sanjay - he had contested to the Assembly elections in both 2014 & 2018 and lost, Nagarkurnool – Bangaru Shruthi (daughter of former party president Bangaru Laxman), Nalgonda – G. Jithender Kumar, Bhongir – P.V. Shamsunder Rao, Warangal – Chinta Sambamurthy and Mahbubabad – Hasan Naik.
The party is yet to announce candidate for Hyderabad and six other Lok Sabha constituencies. The lone MLA in Assembly, Raja Singh, has been sounded about contesting, but it has not been finalised yet.
