Hyderabad: The Election Commission on Thursday announced elections to fill up three regular MLC seats and a bypoll to one Council seat in Andhra Pradesh. If polling is needed, it will be held on June 1.
The three seats are among those that were created by an amendment to the AP Reorganisation Act, that increased the strength of the AP Legislative Council from 50 to 58. These three seats fall in the quota to be elected by MLAs.
The bypoll was necessitated due to the death of Congress veteran Paladugu Venkata Rao on January 19, 2015. The term of the MLC elected to this seat will end on March 29, 2017.
The Telugu Desam will get this seat in view of its numbers in the Assembly. Given their numbers, two of the three regular seats will go to the TD-BJP combine and the YSRC will bag the third.
This election is also expected to be unanimous, like the one held two months ago for five seats in the MLAs quota. At that time, the TD got three seats and the YSRC two.
There are several aspirants queuing up for the MLC seats from ruling party including Somireddy Chandramohan Reddy, M. Linga Reddy, Beeda Ravichandra, T.D. Janardhana Rao and Gali Muddukrishnama Naidu who missed the bus the last time.
However, TD president N. Chandrababu Naidu who weighs region, religion, caste and loyalty factors while selecting the candidates, will keep up the suspense till the last moment.
