The BJP on Thursday announced a list of 10 MP candidates who would be contesting in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections from Telangana. The list included former Congress leader DK Aruna who had joined the BJP recently and G Kishan Reddy. While Aruna will be contesting from Mahabubnagar, Reddy will be contesting from Secunderabad constituency, a seat held by former minister Bandaru Dattatreya. In the last elections, the BJP had been reduced to winning just one of the 17 Lok Sabha seats.
Aruna, a firebrand leader is a three-time MLA from Gadwal. She would be contesting against Vamshi Chand Reddy of the Congress and Manne Srinivas Reddy from the TRS.
Aruna was a minister during YS Rajasekhar Reddy's term and went on to hold portfolios of Small Scale industries, Sugar, Khadi and Village Industries in Rosaiah's cabinet. Aruna later served as Information Minister in Kiran Kumar Reddy's government. The daughter of former Congress MLA Chittem Narsi Reddy, she contested in the 2004 assembly elections on a Samajwadi Party ticket and won with a huge majority. She, however, switched to the Congress in 2009 and continued her winning streak until the recent Assembly Elections, where she was humbled by her nephew, Bandla Mohan Krishna Reddy of the TRS.
Aruna lost to Krishna by a margin of 28,260 votes. While Aruna received 72,155 votes, Krishna secured 1,00,415 votes.
Former Telangana state BJP president and three-time MLA, Kishan Reddy will be contesting from Secunderabad, a seat which he has been eyeing since 2014. Reddy would be contesting against two-time Congress MP Anjan Kumar Yadav and debutant, Talasani Saikiran Yadav from TRS, who is the son of Minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav.
Reddy had recently lost the assembly elections from Amberpet to TRS candidate Kaleru Venkatesh with a margin of just 1,016 votes. He, however, managed to convince the party leaders to deny the seat to sitting BJP MP Bandaru Dattatreya.
D Aravind, the younger son of former TRS MP D Srinivas, will be foraying in the elections against Kalvakuntla Kavitha, sitting MP of Nizamabad. The youth leader has been extensively working in Nizamabad by mobilizing the youth and taking up issues of the farmers. To a great extent, Aravind strengthened the BJP in Nizamabad by fighting for sugarcane farmers and organizing protests demanding the opening of Nizam Sugars.
Other in the list include Bandi Sanjay from Karimnagar, N Ramachandra Rao from Malkajgiri, Bangaru Shruti from Nagarkurnool, Garlapati Jithender Kumar from Nalgonda, PV Shyam Sundar Rao from Bhongir, Chinta Sambamurthy from Warangal and Jalothu Hussain Naik- Naik from Mahabubabad.
Elections to the 17 constituencies in the state would be held on April 11.