With the Election Commission of India announcing the schedule for bye-election to the vacant Rajya Sabha seat in Telangana on Thursday, all eyes are on who Telangana Rashtra Samithi president and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao will nominate for the vacancy.
The Rajya Sabha seat fell vacant following the resignation of TRS MP Banda Prakash, who was nominated to the state legislative council. Upon election, the term of the new member will expire on April 2, 2024.
The notification for the RS seat will be issued on May 12, when the nomination process will begin. According to the release, the nominations will be accepted from May 12, and the last date for filing nominations is May 19.
The nominations will be scrutinised on May 20 and the last date for withdrawal of candidature would be May 23. The polling will be held from 9 am to 4 pm on May 30. The counting of votes will be organised on the same day at 5 pm, followed by announcement of the results.
It is a foregone conclusion that the TRS will win the Rajya Sabha seat, as it has enough strength in the assembly.
So, there is no need for any election process as no opposition party will field any candidate. The candidate will be declared elected on the day of the withdrawal of the nominations.
But the question is who will KCR nominate for the RS seat. Since he has forced the sitting MP Banda Prakash to resign the seat, he must have already somebody in his mind for the vacant seat.
Since Banda Prakash is a BC candidate (Mudiraj), there is a talk that KCR will choose another BC candidate.
There is another talk that since he is pampering Dalits of late with various schemes like Dalit Bandhu, he might even prefer a Dalit leader like Mothkupalli Narasimhulu.
There are some more names that are doing rounds in the TRS circles – actor Prakash Raj who had been moving in the close circle of KCR for some time in the recent past; former Karimnagar MP Boinapalli Vinod Kumar and industrialist and former MD of Namasthe Telangana daily C L Rajam etc.
In any case, KCR is expected to come out with the announcement by next week, before the nomination process commences, sources said.
