The State president of student wing of TRS Gellu Srinivas Yadav is the party candidate for by-election to Huzurabad Assembly constituency.
His candidature was announced by TRS president and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao. The by-election to the constituency was necessitated by the resignation of former Minister Eatala Rajender after the government booked land grabbing cases against him. He was sacked from the Cabinet, upon which he resigned from TRS and his membership of Assembly. He joined the BJP two months ago but the party has not yet named him as its candidate though he took up a padayatra in the constituency seeking the blessings of the electorate a fortnight ago.
The selection of Mr. Srinivas Yadav came at a time when there were multiple aspirants to the TRS ticket. Prominent among them was the Congress rival of Mr. Rajender in the last Assembly elections — P. Kaushik Reddy — who polled 61,000 votes to Mr. Rajender’s 1.04 lakh votes.
Mr. Kaushik Reddy quit Congress to join TRS recently but he was made an MLC under the Governor’s quota. Another BJP leader and former Minister E. Peddi Reddy who represented Huzurabad in the past also joined the TRS, but he was not considered. Mr. Peddi Reddy quit BJP as his chances of getting the ticket dimmed with Mr. Rajender joining the party.
A former State Backward Classes Commission member V. Krishna Mohan Rao was among the other aspirants, including former TDP Minister Muddasani Damodar Reddy’s son Kashyap Reddy who recently joined the TRS, Veereshalingam and Ponuganti Mallaiah. Mr. Veereshalingam was with the TRS even before Mr. Rajender joined it.
Sources said Mr. Srinivas Yadav was a bitter critic of Mr. Rajender within the TRS. He is a close follower of Minister and TRS working president K.T. Rama Rao.