Rama Krishna Sangem
TRS supremo and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) has rewarded Namasthe Telangana Telugu newspaper managing director Deevakonda Damodar Rao with MP seat in the coming Rajya Sabha elections from the state. The other two candidates are: Dr Bandi Parthasaradhi Reddy, chairman of Hetero Drugs and Vaddiraju Ravi Chandra, also known as Gayatri Ravi for the three RS seats that fall vacant now.
Of them, Ravi Chandra will be the candidate for a by-election with a remaining tenure of two years, while the other two will be regular MPs, with six year term. The by-poll is caused by the resignation of Banda Prakash Mudiraj as he was sent as MLC to the Legislative Council recently. Of the three selected candidates, two are other communities (OCs) while Ravi is a BC (Munnuru Kapu).
KCR took the decision on the RS candidates on May 18, Wednesday evening. Ravi will file his papers on May 19, the last date for filing of nominations. Damodar and Parthasaradhi will file their papers later, as the notification is yet to be issued by the EC. As TRS has enough strength in the Assembly to win the three RS seats, the election will be held unopposed and all the three will be declared elected after withdrawal of nominations.
Damodar Rao is a long time associate of KCR, for the last several years, as senior office bearer and treasurer of the party. He, a chartered accountant, looked after the management of Namasthe Telangana newspaper almost since its inception. His name came as a probable for RS seat in the last few years, but he had to wait till now. Hailing from Jagitial district, Damodar Rao will continue to take care of the party’s finances, source say.
Dr Parthasaradhi Reddy’s name is heard as TRS RS probable for the last few months. Hailing from Khammam district. Dr Reddy is a postgraduate in synthetic chemistry. He successfully expanded the footprint of Hetero Drugs across the globe, especially during the two year long pandemic. Now he is expanding into other environmentally friendly areas like wind power, with Hetero Windpower.
61 year old Ravi Chandra who unsuccessfully contested on Congress ticket for the assembly from Warangal district in 2018 is a granite businessman. He is the chief promoter of Gayatri Group of companies since 1991. This group is famous for quarrying black granite, with great demand across the world. Ravi is related to Civil Supplies Minister Gangula Kamalakar.
Ravi with enough clout among the Munnur Kapus, a predominant community in Telangana has been chosen for the by-election seat as CM KCR might field him in the upcoming assembly elections in 2023 or Lok Sabha polls in 2024. With this, TRS will hold all the seven RS seats from Telangana. Of the 18 RS seats from combined AP, Telangana got 7 while Andhra allotted 11 seats.
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good report