Sleepless nights for tripartite alliance as ticket battles heat up in Andhra

Vijayawada: Even as efforts are underway to cajole unsuccessful ticket aspirants for Lok Sabha and Assembly segments, the fear of rebels upsetting their arithmetic calculations to register victory in the May 13 elections is giving sleepless nights to the leaderships of the TDP-BJP and Jana Sena Party (JSP) alliance.

The respective leaders of the tripartite alliance are trying to convince them to cooperate with the promises of post-poll posts like MLC, Advisors with Cabinet rank and corporation chairman posts. “In alliances sacrifices are natural as everyone cannot be accommodated. Once we come to power, we will certainly accommodate them in some position or the other,” a politburo member of TDP told Bizz Buzz.

Those who were denied tickets in the ruling YSRCP, over half a dozen MPs and several sitting MLAs including Minister Gummanur Jayaram have defected either to TDP or JSP. Due to allotment of 30 Assembly and 10 Lok Sabha seats to JSP and BJP, TDP could not nominate seniors like former State president K Kala Venkata Rao, politburo members Devineni Uma, Alapati Rajendra Prasad and former MLA from Visakhapatnam Gandi Babji. The party also could not accommodate another senior leader and former MInister Bandaru Satyanarayana Murthy, who had staked claim for Pendurthi as the ticket was given to JSP’s Panchakarla Ramesh Babu as part of the seat-sharing formula. Ramesh Babu defected to JSP after resigning from YSRCP.

Former Minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao, who served as one-time MP and three-time MLA, is still trying for Bheemunipatnam Assembly ticket though the TDP high command asked him to contest against Education Minister Botcha Satyanarayana from Chipurapalle in the neighbouring Vizianagaram district. One of the strong aspirants for Tirupati ticket, TDP leader and former MLA Sugunamma broke down during a press conference on Monday for denying her the ticket as the seat has been allotted to JSP.

She said her followers are bringing pressure on her to contest as a rebel. JSP ticket aspirant Pothina Mahesh has resorted to a hunger strike to insist on party president Pawan Kalyan to insist on allotment of Vijayawada West ticket to the party. Under seat sharing adjustment, the ticket has been allotted to the BJP and the saffron brigade has announced the name of former Union Minister and businessmen Y Sujana Choudhary as its candidate after his attempts for getting a Lok Sabha ticket failed.

There is also dissidence in the BJP with the talk that the party has allotted five of the six Lok Sabha tickets to political turncoats including CM Ramesh (Anakapalle), Varaprasada Rao (Tirupati), Kothapalli Geeta (Araku), N Kiran Kumar Reddy (Rajampet) and Bhupathiraju Srinivas Varma (Narsapuram). Following the denial of BJP ticket from Narsapuram to YSRCP’s suspended MP K Raghu Ramakrishna Raju, there is buzz that he may be given Undi Assembly seat or Vizianagaram Lok Sabha ticket. TDP has not finalised Vizianagaram LS candidate following refusal to contest by senior leaders including Ashok Gajapathi Raju and Kala Venkata Rao.

Incidentally, YSRCP which cleared most of the names by sending some to neighbouring constituencies due to adverse findings in opinion polls conducted by the party leadership, is better off as far as rebellion is concerned. Unsuccessful aspirants including half-a-dozen MPs and several MLAs have crossed over to TDP, JSP and BJP depending on promises being made to them on their nomination. For instance, old winning horses like K Parthasarathy has defected to TDP. Machilipatnam MP Vallabhaneni Balashowry shifted to JSP while Rajya Sabha MP Vemireddy Prabhakar Reddy, Kurnool MP Sanjeev Kumar, Ongole MP Magunta Sreenivasulu Reddy and Narasaraopet MP Lavu Srikrishna Devarayulu have taken TDP ‘theertham’ on a firm promise of allotment of tickets of their choice.