KCR finalising names for TS polls; 1st list likely next week

Hyderabad: The BRS is likely to release its first list of candidates for the upcoming Assembly polls on August 21. Party sources said that BRS president and Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao has been finalising the list at Pragathi Bhavan for the past three days.

Party sources said the Chief Minister was keen to announce the list in the ‘Nija Shravana Masam,’ between August 17 and September 15 which is considered to be the most auspicious period with multiple festivals and pujas. August 21 is seen as the most auspicious day as it sees the ‘panchami (fifth day)’ coincide with ‘Shravana Somavaram’.

Suspense, however, is rife over the number of candidates that will figure in the list. While sources believe that the number will add up or be a multiple of Rao’s lucky number of six, the numbers shared by leaders included 51, 60, 78, 87, 96 and 105. For the 2018 Assembly polls, Rao’s first list contained the 105 names and was released on September 6.

During multiple public meetings over the past six months, Rao and BRS working president K.T. Rama Rao have declared names of around 20 MLAs as candidates, appealing to people to elect them again.

The first list is expected to have the names of MLAs who fared well in the surveys commissioned by the Chief Minister, while the second list will be kept pending for a few more weeks as the performances of MLAs in many constituencies was not up to the mark, sources said.

There are also several instances of multiple aspirants within the BRS for a few Assembly constituencies, which may compound matters as it is learnt that a few senior leaders from the Congress are expected to join the ruling party and Chandrashekar Rao being reportedly in favour of allotting them tickets. According to one report, Congress’ Sangareddy MLA T. Jayaprakash ‘Jagga’ Reddy likely to join the BRS anytime.

For such reasons, the Chief Minister has decided to hold back the declaration of candidates for the hotly-contested seats, with candidates to be finalised after getting further clarity, sources said.

While it has been a party tradition for Chandrashekar Rao to release the list of candidates for all Assembly polls since 2004, speculation is rife in BRS circles that Rama Rao would be doing the honours for the first time.  They cited the rebranding of TRS as BRS, last October, as the reason for the change.