Vijayawada: Party aspirants struggle to find safe poll seat

Vijayawada: Efforts by politicos to get tickets from political parties for contesting the AP Assembly and Parliament elections is gaining momentum.

Congress which put out an invitation for applications from aspiring candidates for tickets is getting a good response. So far it has received 347 applications for Assembly seats and 56 for Parliament seats in the last two days.

Besides Congress, other political parties have started the selection of candidates and have been announcing names of selected candidates.

Telugu Desam started survey and sought opinion for the process. Now it has started selecting candidates and is expected to announce its candidates this month.

Jana Sena which is going to contest elections with Communist parties has also started selecting candidates. Recently the party announced former state Assembly Speaker Nadendla Manohar as its candidate from Tenali.

According to reports, there apparently is a tough competition amongpolitical aspirants to get the tickets especially for  major political parties. In many cases, candidates who had lost the election  earlier by a small margin are trying for tickets to try their luck once more in these elections.

Many of the MLA and MP aspirants are choosing  seats that they feel would be easier to win for getting tickets for the contest. For instance, AP Congress Committee president and former minister N. Raghuveera Reddy has chosen Kalayandurgam constituency to contest in AP Assembly elections. He had contested from Penugonda for the election  in 2014 but had lost.