Former Union Minister Daggubati Purandeswari will be the BJP candidate from Visakhapatnam Lok Sabha constituency as the party decided not to field outgoing MP K. Haribabu from the same seat again.
Purandeswari is the daughter of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) founder and former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N T Rama Rao. She was earlier elected from Visakhapatnam as an MP on a Congress ticket in 2009.
The senior leader has no easy fight as she will be going up against ex-IPS officer V V Lakshminarayana from Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena Party. Lakshminarayana, the former joint director of the CBI, was a key figure in investigating YSRCP chief Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy’s disproportionate assets and other cases of corruption against him.
While the YSRCP has fielded a businessman, M V V Satyanarayana, for the Lok Sabha seat, the TDP has named MV Sri Bharat, the son-in-law of actor-politician N Balakrishna. Purandeswari is Balakrishna’s sister, making this political fight more interesting.
The BJP announced candidates for two Lok Sabha constituencies in Andhra Pradesh in its first list released on Thursday. The party's state unit President Kanna Lakshminarayana was named as the candidate for Narasaraopet seat.
In 2014, the BJP which was in alliance with the TDP won four MLA seats- Rajahmundry, Tadepalligudem, Visakhapatnam and Kaikalur. At the time, Pawan Kalyan also backed the alliance.
However, the alliance between the TDP and BJP was later snapped over the BJP-led centre not according Special Category Status to the state as per the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act 2014. Pawan too, had a fallout with both parties.
Last week, unfazed by the anger against the party in the state, the BJP said that it would contest in the all the 175 Assembly and 25 MP seats.
Andhra Pradesh has 175 Assembly seats and 25 Parliament seats. The state will go for polls on April 11 and will witness a multi-cornered fight with the alliance of JSP-BSP-Left, TDP and YSRCP in fray. However, the main contest will be between the ruling TDP and YSRCP.