The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) on Tuesday, November 16 announced candidates for biennial elections to six seats of the Legislative Council from Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs) quota. TRS named former deputy chief minister Kadiyam Srihari, former chairman of Telangana Legislative Council G Sukhender Reddy, Rajya Sabha member Banda Prakash and P Venkatrama Reddy, former Siddipet District Collector who took voluntary retirement, as the candidates for biennial elections to the state Legislative Council. Venkatrama Reddy was named as one of the candidates for the Council a day after he resigned as Siddipet District Collector.
Venkatrama Reddy, whose act of touching Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao's feet and whose alleged contemptuous remarks against a court had triggered a row, took voluntary retirement from service on Monday, November 15. Venkatrama Reddy, a Group I officer who was promoted to the IAS rank in 2007, said he would work under the guidance of KCR to take part in the development of the state.
Srihari and Sukhender Reddy have been nominated for a second consecutive term while Banda Prakash, who was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2018, is being surprisingly sent to the Upper House of the state legislature. The other candidates include Padi Kaushik Reddy, who had quit Congress to join TRS four months ago. The state Cabinet had on August 1 decided to nominate Kaushik Reddy under the Governor's quota and sent a recommendation to Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan. However, as the Governor did not clear the file, the TRS decided to send him to the Council under the MLAs quota.
Soundararajan had said on September 8 that the Cabinet's recommendation was still under consideration as she needed more time to make a decision. The Governor said since the nominated post falls in the category of social service, she was trying to get information about Kaushik Reddy's social service. The sixth candidate announced by TRS is the party secretary T Ravinder Rao.
Elections to six seats of the Legislative Council are scheduled on November 29. As TRS has a huge majority in 119-member Assembly, the election of all its candidates appears a mere formality.
November 16 is the last date of filing nominations. The scrutiny of nominations will be taken up on November 17 while November 22 will be the last date for withdrawal of nominations. Polling, if necessary, will be held on November 29 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The counting of votes will be taken up the same day.
The term of office of the sitting MLCs expired in June, but the elections could not be conducted due to the outbreak of the second wave of COVID-19. The term of Akulla Lalitha, Mohammed Fareeduddin, Gutha Sukhender Reddy, Nethi Vidyasagar, Bodakunti Venkateshwarlu and Kadiyam Srihari expired on June 3. Of them, only Sukhender Reddy and Srihari have been renominated.