Karimnagar: Ahead of the announcement of the first list of candidates, the lobby for Congress tickets has been intensified as the aspirants are making visits to New Delhi and Hyderabad to earn some brownie points with the party leadership.
In the erstwhile Karimnagar district, 69 applied for tickets from 13 Assembly segments and 53 from 12 segments in erstwhile Warangal district. It would be easy for the party to decide on tickets from Manthani, Mulugu, Manakondur, Jagtial and Bhupalpally from where only one aspirant applied.
Manthani and Mulugu segments are being represented by Congress MLAs D. Sridhar Babu and Seethakka respectively. But, MLA Sridhar Babu is facing competition with one Pramod Kumar, a senior journalist, who applied for a ticket.
When Dr Kavampally Satyanarayana applied from Manakondur, Thatiparthy Jeevan Reddy from Jagtial and Gandra Satyanarayana from Bhupalpally segments. But there is a heavy ticket competition from Karimnagar, Wardhannapet, Korutla, Dharmapuri, Warangal West, Station Ghanpur, Mahabubabad and Parkal constituencies.
15 aspirants are trying their luck from Karimnagar, 11 from Wardhannapet and seven from Dharmapuri. While six aspirants from each segment are competing in Korutla, Warangal West, Station Ghanpur and Mahabubabad, five are in the race for Parkal seat.
There is a tough fight between ex-PCC chief Ponnala Laxmaiah and former MLA and DCC president Kommuri Prathap Reddy in Jangaon segment while former Karimnagar MP Ponnam Prabhakar and former MLA Aligireddy Praveen Reddy are competing in Husnabad for party ticket.
While the BC leaders are demanding the party to allot at least two Assembly seats for their communities in each Parliamentary segment, the leaders who lost in the previous elections are urging the party for their re-nomination as they are confident of winning this time with ‘sympathy’ votes.
