Chiranjeevi's resignation on Thursday to the Tirupati seat marks the end of a saga of the Praja Rajyam founder who not only chose the temple city as the launch pad of his political party amid an unprecedented fanfare but also for his maiden electoral battle, only to give it up barely after two years following his nomination to Rajya Sabha by the Congress as a quid pro quo for merging his PR en bloc with the grand old party whose history is replete with such similar mergers and de-mergers.
With Chiru officially submitting his resignation to his Tirupati Assembly seat, it now falls vacant requiring a mandatory by-election, probably along with the by-elections due for the17 Assembly seats, which fell vacant after its sitting incumbents were ‘disqualified' for violating the party whip and switching sides to Jagan's party. Though the race among the contenders in the Congress and the TDP for the Tirupati seat is already half the way through, it is now expected to gather further momentum with Chiru's official resignation.
As for the former Congress MLA, Venkatramana, his dreams of bagging it without any hiccups was dashed-off with the Minister for Mines and Geology Minister, Galla Aruna pulling all strings at Delhi to secure the seat for her son Galla Jayadev's political debut. Both Ramana and Galla are said to be intensively lobbying for the seat through their godfathers and ‘godmothers' too.
It is to be seen whether the high command would favour a tried and tested hand or a young debutant with a political background.
As for the TDP, the party's rank and file at Tirupati are peeved over Chandrababu Naidu, suddenly propping up the name of the former MLA, Chadalawada Krishnamurthy for the seat, unmindful of the fact that he not only kept away from the party but also kept changing parties during the last one decade.
But Chadalawada, who does not to give up is however, knocking at the door of all the TDP leaders in the city to assuage their ruffled feelings and is also trying to get Chandrababu Naidu to Tirupati for a massive programme in the next one week or ten days to get an official stamp for his ‘home coming'.
As for the YSRCP, there is no ambiguity on its candidate would be, since its strongman and a close aide of the YSR family - B. Karunakar Reddy, former TTD Board Chairman, like an ‘early bird' is already through with his campaign for the last two months to score over others.
