Cheepurupalli: Ganta Srinivasa Rao likely to face Botcha Satyanarayana in Assembly polls

Cheepurupalli : In a move to give a tough fight to strong leaders of the ruling party, Telugu Desam Party is considering effective strategies to pitch in key leaders against them.

In alignment with its poll plans, the party high command is considering former minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao to contest against YSRCP's titan Botcha Satyanarayana in Cheepurupalli.

The Education Minister is the most senior leader of the YSRCP. When he was with the Congress, he was considered as a Chief Minister candidate. After joining the YSRCP, he became one of the key leaders of the party.

Subsequently, Botcha Satyanarayana gained a berth in Jagan Mohan Reddy's Cabinet and served as the Minister of Municipal Administration and Urban Development. Even in the reshuffling exercise, he continued as a Cabinet Minister. Besides having a firm grip over Vizianagaram district, the present Education Minister has command over North Andhra region as well. Apparently, he plays a crucial role not just in his constituency but also in ensuring the victory of party candidates in other constituencies in the region.

In the meantime, to give a stiff competition to Botcha Satyanarayana, the TDP is contemplating on fielding a strong leader like Ganta Srinivasa Rao, who never faced a defeat in his political career that began two decades ago.

By pitching Ganta Srinivasa Rao against Botcha Satyanarayana, the focus for the rest of the region is likely to get diluted as the latter is expected to get into a defence mode. But the sudden proposal of the new constituency belonging to a different district did come as a big surprise to Srinivasa Rao. Expressing his view over the party's proposal, Ganta Srinivasa Rao mentioned that he is yet to consider the constituency which is about 150-km away from his comfort zone. "If given a choice, I would prefer to contest from Bheemunipatnam," the former Minister conveyed.

So far, Srinivasa Rao did not repeat the constituency he had contested from for the second time. However, this time, he intended to break away from this pattern and planned to contest from Bheemunipatnam. But the TDP high command seems to have a different plan in store for him.

Although a section of leaders in Vizianagaram are glad to usher in Ganta Srinivasa Rao with open arms into the Assembly constituency, the former minister mentioned that he is yet to take a stand on it and would do so after considering the pros and cons of contesting from altogether a new constituency that falls into the neighbouring district.