Amaravati: For the 11 April elections, the BJP in Andhra Pradesh announced their first list of 123 candidates to the 175-member assembly. The BJP, which fought the 2014 election in alliance with the TDP, is now fighting the elections on its own.
Among the three sitting MLAs of the BJP, only one has been re-nominated, while the other two have opted out of contest. While BJP is hoping to improve on its tally of four in 2014, the main contest will be between ruling Telugu Desam Party and main opposition YSR Congress led by Y S Jaganmohan Reddy.
In the party’s first list, a sitting MLA who jumped ship from YSR Congress to TDP and later to BJP has been given the ticket. P Vishnu Kumar Raju has been re-nominated. He was elected to the assembly for the first time in 2014 from Visakhapatnam North.
For the Badwel (SC) seat in Kadapa district, T Jayaramulu has been chosen. He was elected in 2014 on YSRC ticket but he moved to the TDP in 2016. Just a couple of days ago, he quit the TDP and joined the BJP. Former MLA Nimmaka Jayaraju has been chosen for Kurupam (ST) seat while senior politician Kandula Rajamohan Reddy has been nominated for Kadapa.
Industrialist N S Tulasinath has been chosen to take on Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu in Kuppam in Chittoor district. Former Mayor of Visakhapatnam city, Pulusu Janardhan, has been given the Gajuwaka Assembly ticket. The candidate from Vijayawada Central will be State BJP general secretary V Satyamurthy, while BJYM national secretary Panthala Suresh is being fielded from Koduru (SC) constituency.