Hyderabad: Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) president and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has reportedly dropped the proposal of sending his daughter K. Kavitha, former Lok Sabha member, to the Rajya Sabha.
Two seats of the Upper House from Telangana state will be falling vacant and elections for them are slated to be held in March. Earlier, Mr Chandrasekhar Rao wanted to nominate his daughter from one of the seats, but he has recently changed his mind. Sources close to the CM said that if Ms Kavitha is given the Rajya Sabha ticket, he will have to face criticism from people that he had sent his daughter to Parliament through the back door, despite her losing the Lok Sabha elections held in 2019.
Moreover, if he entertains a losing candidate in this manner, others who have lost, too will bring pressure on him for various posts.
After she lost the parliamentary elections, Ms Kavitha has maintained silence and kept away from party activities for months together. She subsequently became active and participated in some of the party programmes recently. This led to speculation that she might be sent to the Rajya Sabha. However, since the past few days, Ms Kavitha has once again fallen silent. TRS leaders feel this could be because of Mr Chandrasekhar Rao's latest decision on the Rajya Sabha polls.
TRS sources say the name of former MP Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy has almost been finalised for one of the two Rajya Sabha seats. Mr Reddy won the 2014 Lok Sabha elections from Khammam on a YSR Congress ticket. He
subsequently defected to the TRS. In 2019, the TRS denied him a ticket from the Khammam LS seat. Instead, the party nominated Mr Nama Nageswara Rao, who joined TRS just before Lok Sabha elections. At the time, TRS assured Mr Reddy that he would be given an alternative post for sacrificing his seat.
Keeping this in view, Mr Chandrasekhar Rao has decided to nominate Mr Reddy for one of the two Rajya Sabha seats. TRS sources say the second seat will be given to a candidate belonging to the SC or ST community. The CM is said to be looking for an appropriate candidate from the SC or ST community for the second seat.
