Former minister and senior Telugu Desam functionary Bandaru Satyanarayana. (Image: DC)
Visakhapatnam: Former minister and senior Telugu Desam functionary Bandaru Satyanarayana, who announced retirement from active politics in protest after his constituency Pendurthi had been allotted Jana Sena, and Giddi Eswari, who raised a banner of revolt and threatened to contest as an independent candidate from Paderu, are back in fray as TD nominees after the party high command buckled under their pressure.
Giddi Eswari will be the TD candidate from Paderu, replacing the earlier alliance nominee Killu Venkata Ramesh Naidu. Satyanarayana Murthy has been given the ticket from Madugula in Anakapalli district, replacing Pyla Prasada Rao.
Both the leaders collected B forms from TDP chief N. Chandrababu Naidu at Vundavalli in Vijayawada on Sunday.
“I am happy that the party high command has recognised my services and given me the Madugula ticket. I will definitely win with a huge majority,” Satyanarayana Murthy told reporters. He said he would talk to Pyla Prasad and G. Rama Naidu, the other two contestants who had hoped for the TD ticket. Initially, TD high command had ignored the candidature of Rama Naidu and announced the name of Pyla Prasad, an NRI from the US.
Local leaders said Satyanarayana Murthy will have a tough task pacifying people who are angry over Pyla Prasad being replaced. Giddi Eswari was all smiles after collecting the B form from Chandrababu Naidu as candidate from the Paderu assembly constituency. She had been very upset and organised huge demonstrations with her supporters after TDP allotted the Paderu ticket to Ramesh Naidu, a government school teacher who quit his post to join Telugu Desam in March 2023.
Giddi Eswari had been elected on the YSRC ticket in 2014. Two years later, she switched over to Telugu Desam. In 2019 elections, she lost to K. Bhagyalakshmi of YSRC. Satyanarayana Murthy won as MLA of TD in 1994 and 1999 from erstwhile Paravada constituency and in 2014 from Pendurthi. He became the minister for municipal administration in 1996.
Now contesting from Madugula, Satyanarayana Murthy will be facing Deputy Chief Minister Budi Mutyala Naidu’s daughter Erle Anuradha of YSRC. Giddi Eswari will take on YSRC’s Matsyarasa Visweswara Raju in Paderu. Significantly, YSRC has won both Madugula and Paderu assembly constituencies in the both 2019 and 2014 assembly elections.
( Source : Deccan Chronicle )
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