Vijayawada: While it turned out to be a season of Gen X leaders in Telugu Desam, another successor from a political family is getting ready to take a plunge into active politics.
Environment and forests minister Sidda Raghava Rao’s son, 37-year-old Sidda Sudhir Kumar, is said to be getting ready to face the upcoming polls. All these years, Mr Sudhir Kumar has been working behind the scenes for his father.
While TD chief N. Chandrababu Naidu is looking for wealthy and strong candidates to contest for Lok Sabha seats on TD ticket, it is learnt that he wants Mr Raghava Rao to contest fr-om Narasaraopeta Lok Sa-bha constituency.
Mr Raghava Rao had won from Darsi Assembly constituency in Prakasam district in 2014 polls and went onto become a minister in Mr Naidu’s Cabinet.
In the event of Mr Rag-hava Rao moving to Lok Sabha, he wants his son to contest from Darsi Asse-mbly constituency which the Sidda family had been nurturing since a decade. Sidda family doesn’t wish to lose Darsi constituency to somebody else.
Darsi had always been a Congress bastion since 1955 except for once in 1994 when a TD candidate won the seat. After this, it was Mr Raghava Rao who snap-ped the seat from the Cong-ress for the TD.
Now, the TD leadership doesn’t want the constitu-ency to go out of its hand.
It is reliably learnt from the TD central office that a survey was commissioned by the TD leadership and it was found that Mr Raghava Rao has bright chances of winning Narasaraopeta Lok Sabha constituency which has a majority of Ary Vysya votes.
Mr Raghava Rao is a pro-minent Arya Vysya face of the TD. Arya Vysya community is ill-represented at the echelons of any political party and power in Andhra Pradesh.
For Mr Naidu, who wants to play a pivotal role in national politics in 2019, winning every Lok Sabha constituency is really important.
Even if Mr Raghav Rao continues to contest from Darsi Assembly constit-uency, the TD leadership wants his son Mr Sudhir to contest from Markapur As-sembly constituency which will assures two Assembly constituencies for overall tally of Assembly seats for Mr Naidu to come back to power.
Mr Raghava Rao was a su-ccessful businessman having interests in granite qu-arrying in Prakasam distr-ict, before joining politics.
“Sidda Raghava Rao has bright chances to win from Narasaraopeta Lok Sabha constituency due to the ma-jority of Arya Vysya votes. His son Sudhir Kumar can be accommodated in Darsi constituency which has be-en Siddha family’s stronghold,” a TD leader said.
Mr Sudhir Kumar is not new to politics as he has always maintained a low profile and been behind the scenes that ensured his father’s victory in the 2014 polls. Since his father was made a Cabinet minister, Mr Sudhir Kumar has been actively engaged with Da-rsi constituency’s affairs and having regular interactions with the party cadre.
