The opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP) released its second list of candidates for the upcoming Assembly elections, comprising 34 candidates. The list consists of 27 male candidates and seven women. Earlier, TDP Chief Chandrababu Naidu had released the first list of 94 candidates on February 25. The second list comes a few days after TDP sealed its alliance deal with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and joined the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). As per the seat-sharing agreement between three parties, the TDP will contest 144 assembly seats, and will announce candidates for 16 more seats soon.
Announcing the names of 34 candidates, Naidu said the selection process was based on public opinion and requested the people help the party win in the elections. So far the party has announced tickets for 128 candidates.
As per the first list, 24 assembly seats and three parliament constituencies have been allocated to Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena Party (JSP) as per their alliance agreement. JSP has only announced the names of five contestants so far. According to the seat sharing talks that took place on March 11 between the BJP, JSP and TDP, Janasena was allocated two parliamentary seats and 21 assembly constituencies. In the 25 parliament seats from Andhra Pradesh, TDP will contest in 17 parliamentary seats while BJP is set to contest in six seats.
In 2014, the TDP-BJP alliance contested elections with support from the JSP. TDP formed the government and the alliance was dissolved after Andhra Pradesh got the special category status in 2018. In the 2019 elections, all the three parties contested individually and YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) formed the government with a huge margin.