All six candidates of Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) including former deputy chief minister Kadiyam Srihari, former chairman of Telangana Legislative Council G. Sukhender Reddy and Rajya Sabha member Banda Prakash were elected unopposed to Telangana Legislative Council under Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs) quota on Monday.
The returning officer announced that they were elected unanimously as only six nominations were received for biennial elections to the six seats. All the six newly-elected legislators received certificates from the returning officer on Monday, the last day for withdrawal of nominations.
Srihari and Sukhender Reddy have been elected to the upper house of the state legislature for a second consecutive term. In a surprise decision, the ruling party has sent Banda Prakash to the Council. He was elected to Rajya Sabha in 2018.
Those elected to the upper house include P. Venkatarami Reddy, who resigned as Siddipet district collector on November 15.
Venkatarami Reddy, whose action of touching Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s feet and whose alleged contemptuous remarks against courts had triggered row, took voluntary retirement from service on November 15. The Group I officer who was promoted to IAS rank in 2007 was named TRS candidate the next day.
P. Kaushik Reddy, who had quit Congress to join TRS four months ago, has also been elected to the Council. The state Cabinet had on August 1 decided to nominate Kaushik Reddy under governor’s quota and sent a recommendation to Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan.
However, as the governor did not clear the file, the TRS decided to send him to Council under MLAs quota.
TRS secretary T. Ravinder Rao has also been elected to the upper house.
Elections to six seats of the Legislative Council were scheduled on November 29. As TRS has more than 100 members in 119-member Assembly, the election of all its candidates was a mere formality.
The term of office of the sitting MLCs expired in June but the elections could not be conducted due to the outbreak of the second wave of Covid-19 in the country.
The term of Akulla Lalitha, Mohammed Fareeduddin, Gutha Sukhender Reddy, Nethi Vidyasagar, Bodakunti Venkateshwarlu and Kadiyam Srihari expired on June 3. Of them only Sukhender Reddy and Srihari have been re-nominated.
