If the reports appearing in a section of media are to be believed, a retired IAS officer is likely to be the ruling YSR Congress party candidate in the by-elections to Narasapuram parliamentary constituency, in the event of sitting MP Kanumuru Raghurama Krishnam Raju quits his seat and the party.
Raju has already announced that he is going to resign from his MP seat soon and contest the by-elections from Narasapuram on behalf of a political party.
He, however, has not so far mentioned when exactly he would resign and what political party he is going to join.
The rebel MP, who has become a big nuisance for the YSRC for nearly two years, first gave a week’s time for the party to get him disqualified from the Lok Sabha membership.
Later, he extended the deadline to February 5. It is not clear whether he would stick to this latest deadline or not.
But it is more or less certain that Raju will have to step down from his MP seat either on his own or through disqualification. In any case, the by-election to Narasarapuram MP seat is inevitable in another three or four months.
While Raju is banking on the support from the Jana Sena Party headed by power star Pawan Kalyan and Telugu Desam Party led by N Chandrababu Naidu in the event of him contesting the elections on the BJP ticket, the YSRC leadership is already learnt to conducted an internal survey on who the right candidate would be to take on Raju.
According to the reports that appeared in a section of media, YSRC president and chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy has reportedly zeroed in on retired IAS officer M G V K Bhanu, a 1985-batch IAS officer of Assam-Meghalaya cadre.
Bhanu, who hails from Tadepalligudem from West Godavari district, was considered to be a dynamic officer, who had received several awards from the Central government.
He was very close to former chief minister of Andhra Pradesh and Jagan’s father Y S Rajasekhar Reddy.
In fact, Bhanu was on deputation to Andhra Pradesh during the regime of YSR and held a special officer post in the CMO then, looking after YSR’s prestigious Jalayagnam project. He continued for some time during the period of K Rosaiah, before returning to his parent cadre.
There are also unconfirmed reports that Bhanu had played a role in getting key hydro-electric projects to Jagan’s company in north-eastern states. That is how, he became closer to Jagan as well.
After his retirement in 2019 as special chief secretary, he joined the Congress party and contested the elections from Tejpur assembly constituency in Assam, but did not succeed.
According to the reports, the survey conducted by YSRC leadership revealed that Bhanu, who belongs to the Kapu community, stands a chance to win the seat with comfortable margin, when compared to local YSRC leaders who do not enjoy positive image among the people.
However, Jagan will rope in strong Kapu and Kshatriya leaders to lead the campaign and entrust them with the responsibility of ensuring victory for Bhanu.
