JNTU former Vice-Chancellor sacrifices seat for top position in JanaSena
Anantapur: In an interesting twist, the former Vice-Chancellor of the JNTU and the Sri Krishnadevaraya University and the JanaSena leader, Dr. K. Rajagopal, sacrificed his seat of the Anantapur urban Assembly segment after the party high command offered him a top position in the party. Although Mr Rajagopal’s name was in the list of candidates, the list has been changed and the new list was released on Tuesday.
The JanaSena allotted the ticket to T.C. Varun, whose father T. Prakash had contested as a Praja Rajyam candidate from the Anantapur segment in 2009 elections and lost.
The Telugu Desam allotted a ticket to the sitting MLA V. Prabhakar Chowdary despite the party leaders’ various protests wherein they demanded that the party should allot tickets to the Kapus.
In a similar situation, the YSRC announced the candidature of the form-er MP Ananta Venkatra-mi Reddy from the urban segment while majority YSRC leaders were pressurizing the party’s high command to justify the Kapus in the district.
“The JanaSena announced T.C. Varun as a candidate to target Kapu votes from Anantapur where the majority of voters belongs to the Kapu section. The former Vice-Chancellor will be given a high position in the JanaSena party,” sources said.
Dr. Rajagopal, a native of Anantapur, has done Bachelor’s in Mechanical engineering (1976) and Master’s in heat power (1978) from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Anantapur.
He earned his Ph.D in Mechanical engineering at IIT Madras in 1991 and started his career as a lecturer. He has worked as a Vice-Chancellor for the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad, of the combined states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, and more recently, as the Vice-Chancellor for S.K. University, Anantapur.
