Naidu Dominates Alliance Partners in Seat Sharing, Change of Nominees

 Vijayawada: Telugu Desam chief Nara Chandrababu Naidu knocked away the lion's share of seats while forging an alliance with the Jana Sena and BJP and even fielded “his own party leaders” in some segments on behalf of the alliance partners.

AP has a total of 175 assembly and 25 Lok Sabha seats. Of these, TD got 144 assembly and 17 LS seats for contest, while Jana Sena got 21 assembly and two LS, and the BJP 10 assembly and six LS constituencies.

However, there are reports of denial of seats to some party leaders. There were some last- minute changes even as the nominations are being filed and TD leaders are being fielded in the mask of other parties.

Naidu is learnt to have succumbed to pressure to change the TD nominee for Undi assembly seat, Manthena Ramaraju with K Raghu Rama Krishna Raju, even as no survey report projected a scenario of his win. TD loyalist and two-time MLA Siva Rama Raju has been denied the Undi ticket, which forced him to contest the poll as a rebel candidate.

Undi’s former TD MLA Siva Rama Raju said, “I served as the party MLA sinc 2009 and 2014 and developed the segment. I remained loyal to the party. But, ticket was denied to me by Naidu this time for no valid reason.”

Though BJP asked for Eluru LS and assembly seats to accommodate Garapati Seetharama Raju and others, they were not allotted the ticket.

As the Badvel assembly seat was allotted to the BJP for contest, Telugu Desam leader Roshanna was fielded from it “on behalf of the BJP.” He was a leader of TD until he was fielded in the segment as the BJP nominee.

Jana Sena had to sacrifice its proposed Vijayawada West assembly seat in order to accommodate Y Sujana Chowdary from the BJP.

JS leader Pothina Venka Mahesh who was having high expectations of getting his nomination from the segment. Consequently, he left the JS and suspects the seat was denied to him at the behest of Naidu.

Though the JS was initially promised 24 assembly segments, the number was eventually cut short to 21. Several JS leaders thus lost an opportunity to contest the elections. JS chief Pawan Kalyan himself admitted that as they were a part of alliance, they had to accept whatever number of seats given to them and without any complaints.

Political analysts note that Naidu has taken the lead in allotment of seats for the alliance partners – JS and BJP. He also leads others in running the alliance’s campaign.