TDP announces candidates for 13 Lok Sabha seats

Amaravati : The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) on Friday announced candidates for 13 Lok Sabha seats and 11 more Assembly seats in Andhra Pradesh.

With the third list of candidates, the party has declared 139 candidates for Assembly elections. Party president N. Chandrababu Naidu has kept the announcement of candidates for five Assembly seats pending.

Under an alliance with the Jana Sena and BJP, the TDP is contesting 144 out of 175 Assembly and 17 out of 25 Lok Sabha seats. The TDP had previously released the names of 128 candidates in its first and second lists on February 24 and March 11, respectively. The party also released the first list of Lok Sabha candidates. The announcement is pending for four more MP seats.

For the Srikakulam Lok Sabha seat, the TDP has retained sitting MP Kinjarapu Ram Mohan Naidu, son of former union minister Kinjarapu Yerrannaidu.

Kesineni Shivanath (Chinni) will be the TDP candidate from Vijayawada Lok Sabha seat. His brother Kesineni Srinivas (Nani) who was elected on TDP ticket in 2019, is contesting this time as candidate of YSR Congress Party. He switched loyalties last month after the party decided to drop him.

For Guntur Lok Sabha seat, the TDP has named Pemmasani Chandrasekhar as its candidate as the sitting MP Galla Jayadev has decided to stay away from politics. The TDP has once again fielded Mathukumilli Bharat from Visakhapatnam parliamentary seat. In 2019, he narrowly lost to YSRCP's MVV Satyanarayana.

The other Lok Sabha candidates are Ganti Harish Madhur (Amalapuram), Putta Mahesh Yadav (Eluru), Lavu Sri Krishna Devarayalu (Narasaraopet), T. Krishna Prasad (Bapatla), Vemireddy Prabhakar Reddy (Nellore), Daggumalla Prasad Rao (Chittoor), Balusupati Nagaraju (Kurnool), Byreddy Shabari (Nandyal) and B.K Parthasarathi (Hindupur).

N. Chandrababu Naidu has reiterated that the TDP joined NDA for sake of state's interests. He said that for Lok Sabha polls, the party is fielding leaders who can raise their voice in Parliament and fight for the state. He sought people's support for the party candidates.

There is one woman in the Lok Sabha candidates. Two candidates are aged between 25 and 35 years while five candidates are aged between 36 and 45 years. Two candidates are in the age group 46-60 and remaining four are in the age group 61-75.

Two of the 13 candidates are retired IPS/IRS, two MBBS and three post graduates. Remaining six candidates are undergraduates. Simultaneous elections to Andhra Pradesh Assembly and all 25 Lok Sabha seats in the state are scheduled on May 13.