BJP’s Telangana third list dominated by backward class faces, old-timers; miffed Babu Mohan fielded

By keeping 31 seats pending, the BJP is keeping a few seats to placate any possible rebel candidates in the fray. It is also holding alliance talks with actor-turned-politician K Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena Party (JSP), whom it might allocate some seats.

The BJP’s third list features 13 BC (backward classes), 3 ST (Scheduled Tribes), 5 SC (Scheduled Castes) and 14 OC (open category or general category) candidates.

Twenty of the BJP’s 52 candidates in the first list belong to the BC communities. Thus the party has continued to give priority to BC candidates. Union Home Minister Amit Shah recently promised to give a backward class CM if the party is voted to power.

C Srilatha Reddy is the lone woman candidate in the third list and will contest from Huzurnagar. The party has rewarded many long-time party loyalists with tickets.

The JSP leaders said they were hopeful of coming to a positive seat-sharing arrangement with the BJP in some of the remaining seats.

The inclusion of Babu Mohan in the list is a surprise as on October 28 he had said that he would quit the BJP and would not like to contest. He had criticised the leadership of state party chief G Kishan Reddy, launching a tirade against the party.

With its senior leaders including G Vivekanand and Komatireddy Raj Gopal Reddy switching to the Congress, the BJP appears to have gone all out to prevent Babu Mohan from quitting, as it fielded him from the Andole seat in Sangareddy district.

The Nandi Award winner, Babu Mohan is a former MLA of the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) from Andole, who had also been a two-time TDP MLA from the seat. He had also served as the labour minister in the erstwhile N Chandrababu Naidu cabinet. In the 2004 and 2009 polls, he had lost to the Congress candidates, and just before the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh he quit the TDP to join the BRS. He defected to the BJP in 2018, contested the election on its ticket but lost.

Sashidhar Reddy will take on Animal Husbandry Minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav in Sanathnagar. He is a four-time former Congress MLA from Sanathnagar, who is looking to revive his political fortunes. He was a member of the NDMA and National Task for Naxal violence. Last November, he was expelled from the Congress for “anti-party activities” following which he joined the BJP.

The party has rewarded its vice-president Yendala Laxminarayana with a ticket from Banswada. He is a two-time BJP MLA from Nizamabad Urban, having won in 2009 and again in 2010 in a by-poll.

C Krishna Yadav, former minister, has been nominated from Amberpet, the home turf of Kishan Reddy. Senior party leader NVSS Prabhakar, who won from Uppal in 2014 but lost in 2018, will contest again from the same seat.

The BJP has fielded candidates in several of the constituencies which the JSP has sought as part of their proposed seat-sharing agreement, including Uppal, Lal Bahadur Shastri Nagar, Jubilee Hills, Pinapaka (ST), and Satupalli (SC).

The BJP has fielded its state executive committee member Lankala Deepak Reddy from the Jubilee Hills constituency in Hyderabad. He will take on the BRS’s sitting MLA Maganti Gopinath and the Congress candidate Mohammed Azharuddin, the former Indian cricket captain.