Two Congress rebels enter RS fray

The rebels Chaitanya Raju and Adala Prabhakar Reddy allege they are getting threatening calls from party leaders that they would have to face Income Tax raids and some such problems if they refuse to withdraw nominations. In all, 9 filed nominations

• For 6 vacancies, Cong fields 3, TDP 2 and TRS 1
• Two Cong rebels, one Shramajeevi Party chief also in fray

Hyderabad: Nine candidates, including two Congress rebels, filed nomination papers for the six Rajya Sabha seats from Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday.

T Subbirami Reddy, K V P Ramachandra Rao and M A Khan, who have been renominated by the Congress party, filed their papers, while Telugu Desam's Garikapati Mohan Rao and Sitarama Lakshmi also submitted their nominations to Legislature Secretary S Raja Sadaram.

At the eleventh hour, Jajula Bhaskar of Shramajeevi Party, a resident of Malkajgiri, filed his nomination. He was supported by TDP MLA from Medak district, Mynampalli Hanumantha Rao. Bhaskar's application is unlikely to be accepted as 10 members need to sign the nomination papers.

According to Raja Sadaram: "In all, 16 sets of nominations have been filed, three by TDP’s G Mohan Rao, while Keshav Rao, Sitarama Lakshmi, KVP Ramachandra Rao, T Subbirami Reddy, KVVS Raju filed two sets each. Remaining candidates Adala Prabhakar Reddy, M A Khan and Bhaskar filed one set each."

The nomination process of Congress candidates was delayed as SC and ST Ministers Dokka Manikya Varaprasad, P Balaraju and Kondru Murali met PCC president Botcha Satyanarayana and protested against ignoring the two communities. They said the high command should have at least renominated either Nandi Yellaih or Ratna Bai for the fourth seat. They felt that Subbirami Reddy had done nothing for the party and in fact wanted to contest for the Lok Sabha elections from Visakhapatnam.

As the attempts by Botcha to pacify them failed, the ministers met the two AICC observers Tirunavukkarasu and Ramachandra Kuntia. The ministers told the observers that the party had already lost a good chunk of its vote bank from these two communities and now they were left with no face to go to the people and seek votes. The observers assured them that they would convey their feelings to the AICC president Sonia Gandhi and would also arrange a meeting with her after the elections.

Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy, Deputy CM Damodara Rajanarasimha, PCC president Botcha Satyanarayana and some other ministers accompanied the Congress nominees. Former MP K Keshav Rao, who defected from the Congress, filed his papers as Telangana Rashtra Samiti candidate for the biennial election slated for February 7.

Congress MLC K V Satyanarayana Raju alias Chaitanya Raju and MLA Adala Prabhakar Reddy, filed their papers as Congress party rebels in the name of fighting for the cause of "United Andhra Pradesh." However, the Congress poll managers are trying to persuade the supporters of the two rebel candidates to make them withdraw from the contest. The rebel candidates alleged that they were getting threatening calls from party leaders that they would have to face Income Tax raids and some such problems if they refused to withdraw their nominations.

Adala Prabhakar alleged that MLAs Ugra Narasimha Reddy, K Madhu Sudhan Gupta, who signed his papers, also received threatening calls. He said that even Subbirami Reddy called him up several times and asked him to withdraw from the contest. However, Subbirami Reddy said that that his job ended after filing the nomination papers. The high command would take care of the rebel problem, he said.

But the rebel candidates accused Health Minister Kondru Murali of making threatening calls to their supporters. KVP Ramachandra Rao, Raju said, even had deputed Labor Minister Danam Nagender to negotiate with him on the withdrawal.

On the other hand, the PCC president made it clear that the party would initiate disciplinary action against them as well as those who support them.

As immediate fallout of this threat, Ministers Ganta Srinivasa Rao and Erasu Pratap Reddy withdrew their support to Raju, saying that they had appended their signatures on the nomination form, expecting that he would be the official candidate. Another senior MLA J C Diwakar Reddy who claimed a few days back that he would contest the elections backed out of the race claiming that he had taken the decision to prevent split in the Samaikyandhra votes.