Munugode by-election: Palvai Sravanthi is Congress candidate

Hyderabad: After much deliberations, the AICC on Friday confirmed Palvai Sravanthi's candidature for the impending byelection for the Munugode constituency.

Sravanthi is the daughter of late Congress leader Palvai Govardhan Reddy, five-time MLA from Munugode and a Rajya Sabha member.  Govardhan Reddy enjoyed considerable clout in the party.

Given her family’s political legacy, it is believed that the party decided to field her when former party leader Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy resigned. Her name has stayed at the top of the list of probable candidates ever since Rajgopal Reddy decided to leave the Congress in July.  

She was born in Idikuda village, Chandur Mandal, in the Nalgonda district, and started her political career in 1999 as a campaign manager for her father when he was contesting from Munugode.  She is a lawyer with an LLM degree and a ZPTC member of the Congress from the Munugode Assembly constituency.  

She entered active politics later but continued to be a PCC member for more than 20 years and an AICC member since 2005. In the 2014 election, TRS candidate Kusukuntla Prabhakar Reddy defeated Congress candidate Sravanti from Munugode.

Responding to the development, an aspirant, Palle Ravi, who belongs to the Backward Classes community, said that he made strong pitch for a candidate from the community but once again someone from the upper caste had been chosen.

"BC community voters form a major part of the electorate in the Munugode constituency, comprising over 1.5 lakh voters who would have favoured a candidate from the community given the changed political situation. Even the PCC campaign committee favoured a candidate from the BCs. Somewhere the party has failed to catch the crux of the point. But since it is a decision of the party's high command I am with it," the journalist-turned-politician said.

DC tried contact Ch Krishna Reddy whose name was shortlisted along with that Sravanthi by the state Congress. He was considered to be backed by PCC chief A. Revanth Reddy. Hopeful of being chosen, he had taken part in the door-to-door (Intintiki Congress) campaign in Nampally mandal following the formal announcement of the campaign. On September 1, he accompanied the group led by PCC working president and former MP M. Anjan Kumar Yadav in the constituency.

According to party sources, given his financial background, Krishna Reddy was the best bet which was why he was backed by Revanth Reddy. However, Krishan Reddy has no history of holding a politically significant position and is mostly known as a close aide of former MLA Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy till the latter switched over to the BJP. Sravanthi was better positioned, as she had secured the backing of most of the top Nalgonda-based Congress leaders.