Know Your MLA: Kalava, a journalist parliamentarian

Rayadurg constituency: Senior TDP leader and ex-minister Kalava Srinivasulu is the MLA of Rayadurg Assembly constituency.

He is a journalist-turned-politician who plunged into political arena in 1999 when TDP was desperately looking for an MP candidate from the backward classes. In the absence of suitable candidate for the Anantapur Lok Sabha constituency in the party, the party found a promise in the then Eenadu senior reporter Kalava Srinivasulu who hailed from a backward class community. Kalava recalls that it was destiny which made him a politician as politics was never in the wildest of his dreams.

It was in 1999 Kalava quit journalism to straight away contested as MP. At the height of TDP popularity, Kalava won the election by an impressive majority of votes and became an MP. After his smooth transition from journalism to politics, he never looked back.

From 2000 to 2003, he served as the TDP general secretary. Since 2004, he is the politburo member of the party. Subsequently, when won as MLA on TDP ticket from Rayadurg constituency in 2014, he served as the government chief whip in AP Legislative Assembly up to 2017 and as minister for information and public relations from 2017 to 2019.

Kalava did diploma in journalism and PG in Arts. During the years when he served as MP, he was a member of Parliament consultative committee on transport and tourism. He was also a member on consultative committee on agriculture in the Parliament. He also served as a member of the Silk Board.

He served as member of party high power committee on framing of new economic policy. His services were used for the election manifesto committees as member in 2004, 2009 and 2014.

Kalava was and is a loyal soldier of TDP and stood with the party in thick and thin. He is mature enough to understand the changes he is witnessing in the party and believes in God and destiny, despite the party high command thought it fit to infuse young blood in leadership and government.