Botsa Election, a Formality Nomination Ends, 2 in Fray

Visakhapatnam: Decks have been cleared for former minister and senior YSRC leader Botsa Satyanarayana, following withdrawal of NDA alliance for contesting byelection to the MLC of local body authority constituency for the erstwhile Visakhapatnam.

Satyanarayana filed two sets of his nomination with the returning officer and joint collector of Visakhapatnam district on Monday. Independent candidate Sheik Shafiqulla filed his papers as an independent candidate. Only two candidates filed papers as the nomination process ended on Tuesday.

As per the election schedule, scrutiny would be done on Wednesday and the last date for withdrawal of nomination is August 16. Polling, if necessary, would be held on August 30 and counting would be taken up on September 3.

Earlier in the day, Chief Minister and TD national president Nara Chandrababu Naidu has decided in consultation with the alliance partners and conveyed it to the party leaders in a teleconference held on Tuesday not to contest the MLC polls.

In the teleconference, Naidu told his party leaders that the alliance would not contest the elections as it wanted to practice dignified politics. “Winning is not important, peoples’ opinion is crucial,’’ he told the leaders. Though several MLAs came forward to contest the elections, Naidu told them it was not necessary to put so much effort into one MLC seat and asked them to rather focus on the development of the region.