Hyderabad: The Election Commission on Monday announced the schedule for elections to 55 Rajya Sabha seats, which includes six seats from the state. The
biennial elections will be held on February 7. These 55 members will be retiring in April. The six members from the state are retiring after serving a six-year term. They are former union minister T. Subbarami Reddy, Dr K.V.P. Ramachandra Rao, M.A. Khan, T. Ratna Bai, Nandi Yellaiah (all Congress) and N. Harikrishna (Telugu Desam, who resigned to his membership).
In previous elections to fill vacant seats in the upper house, the Congress and Telugu Desam parties used to amicably share the seats —four and two respectively — according to their strength in the Assembly. But this time, some surprises are expected.
Sitting Assembly members who are eligible to vote, may switch loyalties because of the bifurcation issue and want to secure their political future with Assembly polls looming in another three months. These factors may lead to cross-voting.
There are rumours that prounited AP activists are trying to field either APNGOs president P. Ashok Babu or Rajahmundry Lok Sabha member Vundavalli Arun Kumar as the ‘JAC’ candidate. A minimum of 10 MLAs have to propose the candidature of each candidate. The pro- Telangana Telangana Rashtra Samiti and the pro-Samaikyandhra YSR Congress will field their candidates and encourage cross-voting in their favour.
There are 15 vacancies in the 294-member Assembly. A candidate will have to get a minimum of a little above 40 votes. As far as re-nomination from the Congress is concerned, it appears certain that retiring member Khan will be fielded again as he is the only party MP in the Rajya Sabha from the Shia Muslim community.
The Congress used to always renominate its first-time MPs earlier, but has not always done so of late. There are three first-time members — M.A. Khan, Dr K.V.P. Ramachandra Rao and T. Ratna Bai (women-tribal). It is not certain that they will be renominated.
The other member, Subbarami Reddy, is very firm about contesting the Lok Sabha polls from Visakhapatnam, presently represented by Union minister Daggubati Purandareswari. It is also not clear whether the Congress will renominate its seventerm MP, Nandi Yellaiah.
