On 22nd October (Sunday), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) released the first list of 52 candidates for the upcoming Telangana Assembly elections. Out of the 52 candidates, 12 candidates are women, while 14 candidates belong to the Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe community.
In the 52-candidate list, BJP has fielded three of its sitting Members of Parliament (MP) to contest state assembly elections. These include former state president Bandi Sanjay Kumar, Bapu Rao Soyam, and Arvind Dharmapuri. Soyam will enter the election fray from the Boath seat, Dharmapuri will contest elections on the Korutla constituency seat and Bandi Sanjay Kumar has been given a ticket from the Karimnagar constituency.
Another prominent name on the list is Rajender Eatala who is a former member of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (now Bharat Rashtra Samithi). BJP has fielded him on two seats, Huzurabad and Gajwel. On the Gajwel constituency, he will go up against the BRS Chief and current Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.
Similarly, in another high-stake election battle, BJP has entrusted Rani Rudrama Reddy to contest from the Sircilla constituency where she will be up against IT Minister K T Rama Rao, son of Chief Minister KCR.
The sitting MLA from Goshmahal, T Raja Singh, whose suspension was revoked earlier today, will contest from the Goshmahal constituency which he has been representing since 2014.
Earlier in the day, BJP revoked the suspension of Hyderabad MLA T Raja Singh. In a post in Hindi on X (formerly Twitter), Singh thanked party leaders for revoking the suspension.
Thanking the party, he also shared the letter revoking the suspension. The letter read, “Upon suspension, the Central Disciplinary Committee of the party had issued a show cause notice to you. This refers to your reply to the show cause notice. Your reply and explanation offered therein have been considered by the committee. Basis your reply, the committee has decided to revoke your suspension forthwith.”
Meanwhile, the candidate list was finalised by the Central Election Committee which held a meeting on Friday (20th October). The crucial CEC meeting was held under the leadership of Jagat Prakash Nadda. Additionally, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, and Home Minister Amit Shah were also present during the CEC meeting.
The 119-member state Legislative Assembly will go for polls in a single phase voting that will take place on 30th November. The counting of votes will take place on 3rd December.