YSR Congress party president and former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy on Friday announced the candidature of senior leader and former minister Botsa Satyanarayana as the party candidate for the upcoming MLC elections from combined Visakhapatnam district local bodies’ constituency.
According to a party statement, Jagan took the decision after consulting the district leaders to gather their opinions on potential candidates.
As per their view, he finalized Botsa Satyanarayana as the candidate for the by-election to the MLC seat.
On Thursday, corporators belonging to the YSRCP in Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation met with Jagan at the latter’s camp office at Tadepalli.
The meeting was attended by YSRCP North Andhra District Coordinator Y V Subba Reddy, along with prominent party leaders including Kola Guruvulu, Tippala Nagireddy, Golagani Venkata Harikumari, Adeep Raj, KK Raju, Adari Anand, and several other leaders.
The seat has fallen vacant as YSRCP disqualified Vamsi Krishna Srinivas, a former elected MLC from YSRCP, after he joined Jana Sena Party (JSP).
The model code of conduct (MCC) came into immediate effect from Tuesday in Visakhapatnam, Anakapalli and ASR districts.
As per the schedule issued by the Election Commission, the by-election notification will be released on August 6 and the acceptance of nomination papers will start from the same day.
August 13 is the deadline for receipt of nomination papers. August 14 is the last date for the nomination withdrawal, and 16 was fixed as a deadline for scrutiny.
The by-election will be held on August 30 from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm. The counting of votes will be on September 3. The whole election process is expected to be completed by September 6.
The YSRCP still has strong presence in the local bodies in the combined Visakhapatnam district, as it had won maximum number of corporators in Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation, municipal councillors in Yelamanchili and Narsipatnam municipalities, besides ZPTCs and MPTs.
Out of the total number of 841 votes, the YSRCP has a strength of 615, while the TDP and Jana Sena Party have only 215 votes. There are 11 vacancies in these local bodies. So, the YSRCP has all the chances of winning the MLC seat.
