BJP fields Eatala Rajender, 8 others from Telangana

Eatala Rajender

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday announced its senior leader and former minister Eatala Rajender as its candidate to contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in Telangana from Malkajgiri parliamentary constituency.

Rajender’s name figures among the nine candidates in the first list of candidates from Telangana released by the BJP central election committee in the evening.

At present, the BJP has four sitting MPs, but the party retained only three MPs for the second successive term – Bandi Sanjay from Karimnagar, Dharmapuri Arvind from Nizamabad and G Kishan Reddy from Secunderabad. The party kept in abeyance the candidacy of the fourth sitting MP, Soyam Bapu Rao from Adilabad.

Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) MP BB Patil, who resigned from the party and joined the BJP on Friday, has been given the ticket from his Zaheerabad constituency.

Two other former BRS MPs – Konda Vishweshwar Reddy and Bura Narsaiah Goud – have been given the party tickets for Chevella and Bhongir parliamentary constituencies.

Meanwhile, BJP has not taken any decision yet on joining the alliance of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and Jana Sena Party (JSP) in Andhra Pradesh.

On Saturday, BJP national organising secretary Shiv Kumar held a series of discussions with party state unit president Daggubati Purandeshwari, former BJP president Somu Veerraju and others on the strategy to be adopted in Andhra elections.

“We are expecting the party national leadership to take a call on the alliances in a day or two,” senior BJP leader and former MP CM Ramesh said.

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