Tirupati Lok Sabha by-election: TDP candidate Panabaka Lakshmi files nomination

Nellore: TDP candidate for Tirupati Lok Sabha constituency by-election Panabaka Lakshmi filed her nomination in Nellore city on Wednesday.

The bypoll is scheduled to be held on April 17. Senior TDP leaders including the party's State president K Atchannaidu, Yanamala Ramakrishnudu, Devineni Uma and others reached the city and participated in the huge rally organised from the Ambedkar statue at VR Circle up to the Collectorate.

Lakshmi along with her husband and party leader Panabaka Krishnaiah, former Minister Somireddy Chandramohan Reddy and former Venkatagiri legislator K Ramakrishna submitted two sets of nomination papers to the returning officer for Tirupati Lok Sabha constituency and Nellore Collector KVN Chakradhar Babu.

Further, interacting with the media, Panabaka Lakshmi said that she would try to get Special Category Status (SCS) to the State. She also said she would sincerely appeal to the voters to give them a chance to work for the development of the region that comes under the Tirupati Lok Sabha constituency.

She said the voters have to question the BJP leaders on special status when they visit them to seek votes. Lakshmi said everyone in the State had observed what the ruling YSR Congress had done in the recent polls to village panchayats and urban local bodies. Ruling party leaders threatened the candidates after filing nominations and forced them to withdraw, she pointed out. The result of the Tirupati Lok Sabha by-poll should be a lesson to the ruling party, she said.

TDP State president K Atchannaidu took a dig on the ruling party MPs and said that they had done nothing in the Parliament. YSR Congress party MPs have not even raised their voice in the House for getting Special Category Status (SCS) to the State.

He also flayed the YSR Congress MPs for their failure to get funds for the Polavaram Project along with the Special Category Status. Before filing the nomination, Lakshmi garlanded the statues of Ambedkar and NTR in the city and proceeded to the Collectorate for filing the nomination papers.