No Rs Seat For Bjp Three For Tdp One For Jana Sena

Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has managed to have his way in the sharing of Rajya Sabha seats from the state, for which elections are scheduled to be held on June 18.

As per the seat-sharing formula decided during a meeting of coalition party leaders at Naidu’s camp office at Undavalli in Amaravati on Thursday, the TDP will contest three of the four Rajya Sabha seats, leaving the fourth seat to its alliance partner, the Jana Sena Party.

The meeting at Naidu’s residence was attended by Jana Sena Party president and Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan, his party’s political affairs committee chairman and minister Nadendla Manohar, TDP state president Palla Srinivasa Rao and Bharatiya Janata Party state president P V N Madhav.

The four vacancies have arisen due to the completion of the terms of four sitting Rajya Sabha members — Parimal Nathwani, Pilli Subhash Chandrabose and Alla Ayodhya Rami Reddy of the YSR Congress Party, and Sana Satish Babu of the TDP.

Since the TDP and its alliance partners together account for 164 of the 175 Assembly seats in the state, they are expected to win all four seats unopposed.

The YSRCP, which has just 11 MLAs, cannot field a candidate and will be losing all its three seats to the TDP-led alliance.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Palla Srinivasa Rao said the NDA leadership had unanimously agreed on the Rajya Sabha seat-sharing formula, under which the TDP would contest three of the four seats while Jana Sena would field one candidate.

“The party will announce the names of the three candidates shortly,” Rao said.

Manohar said Jana Sena Party president Pawan Kalyan would finalise the candidate for the Rajya Sabha seat allotted to the party as part of the seat-sharing formula.

Madhav said the seat-sharing formula for the Rajya Sabha elections in Andhra Pradesh was decided by the BJP central leadership in consultation with the Chief Minister in Delhi.

“In the past, the BJP got two Rajya Sabha seats from Andhra Pradesh. In any case, the election of TDP and Jana Sena MPs would also mean the NDA’s strength will go up,” he said.