BRS candidates file nominations for council polls

Hyderabad: Three candidates of Telangana’s ruling party Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) on Thursday filed nominations for State Legislative Council polls under MLA quota.

Deshapati Srinivas, K. Naveen Kumar and Challa Venkatrami Reddy filed their papers after paying homage to the Telangana martyrs at Martyrs’ Memorial in front of the Assembly building.

Ministers Harish Rao, Niranjan Reddy, Prashanth Reddy, Malla Reddy, T. Srinivas Yadav, Jagdish Reddy, MLC P. Rajeswara Rao and some other MLAs and MLCs were present at the time of filing of nominations.

While Naveen Kumar filed for the papers for the second term, two others are contesting for the first time for the upper house of the state legislature.

Poet and singer Deshpati Srinivas is currently serving as Officer on Special Duty in the Chief Minister’s Office while Venkatrami Reddy is a former MLA from Alampur constituency.

Biennial elections to three MLC seats are scheduled to take place on March 23. As per the schedule already announced by the Election Commission of India, candidates can file their nominations till March 13. Scrutiny of nominations will be done on March 14 while the deadline for withdrawal of candidatures is March 16.

With more than 100 members in 119-member Assembly, all three candidates of BRS are likely to be elected unopposed.

BRS president and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Tuesday announced the candidates for the MLC polls.

The names of the two candidates to be nominated by the Governor are likely to be announced after the cabinet meeting later on Thursday.