Kakinada: The Telugu Desam is planning to field an educated woman as its mayoral candidate for the Kakinada Municipal Corporation elections.
Party officials believe a woman candidate will be better as Kakinada gets ready for the Smart City tag. They also feel a woman mayor will be better at interacting with officials and experts from around the world.
“We want to develop Kakinada as an ideal city under the leadership of CM N. Chandrababu Naidu. We hope to make Kakinada — which was planned and designed during the British rule — as the most beautiful city,” said MLA Vanamadi Venkateswara Rao. He said that the mayoral candidate would be selected to fulfill TD’s criteria.
According to TD sources, leaders have proposed the name of Ms A. Varalakshmi Srinivas for the post. Ms Srinivas is an advocate and had previously worked as the district president for the Praja Rajyam party.
After the party’s merger with the Congress, she maintained distance from politics for some time and joined the TD before the 2014 general elections. Sources said that Mr Venkateswara Rao was also recommending Ms Srinivas’s name for the post.
Adding to the speculation, Ms Srinivas was seated on the dais with Mr Naidu during an event here on Saturday. She was the only woman to get an invitation to sit on the dais, sources said.
Ms Gatti Ramji, a civil engineer, is another candidate running for the post. Her husband, Mr Gatti Satyanarayana, is a TD leader and close associate of the legislator.
Both Ms Srinivas and Ms Ramji are known to be non-controversial and have no internal groups, TD sources said.
