The five TDP MLAs, who were elected in 2009 general elections, are not contesting from the party this time. Out of them, three joined TRS and the remaining two are reluctant to be in the field.
Pocharam Srinivas Reddy (Banswada) and Gampa Govardhan (Kamareddy) after having joined the TRS resigning to their TDP Legislative Membership got re-elected in the by-elections, while Hanmanth Shinde (Jukkal) joined the TRS just before the announcement of elections.
Mandava Venkateswar Rao (Nizamabad rural) made it clear to the party leadership that he wants to retire from electoral politics to live a peaceful life. Another MLA Eleti Annapoornamma (Armur) dropped herself from the field after securing the ticket for her cardiologist son Mallikarjun Reddy from Balkonda Assembly constituency.
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In the last general elections the TDP with alliance with TRS had won five out of seven seats in the district and no other political party secured those many seats in the election. However, all of them are not going to be in the fray on the party ticket as three were re-contesting from TRS, and two are completely dropping from the field.
Mandava is recommending the party leadership to select one between MLC Arkala Narsa Reddy and former ZPTC member Kulachari Dinesh in his place, while Annapoornamma’s decision resulted in high competition for the BJP ticket as in the alliance between the two parties Armur is most likely to be given to the party.
Consequently, the name of the BJP district president Palle Ganga Reddy has come up all of a sudden apart from Alur Ganga Reddy who joined the party while resigning to TRS district president post only for the ticket. It is said that senior leader Aljapur Srinivas who has been insisting on for MP ticket is likely to stake claim for MLA ticket in the event of his candidature being denied for Lok Sabha elections.
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Incidentally, Mr. Srinivas was defeated twice from Armur on BJP ticket.