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Rajasekhar Reddy priming to replace Naidu

Shireen in Hyderabad

The Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee president, Dr Y S Rajasekhar Reddy, who is the main contender for the chief minister's post in case the party regains power in the September 1999 elections to the state assembly, has sought a ticket from his native Pulivendula in Cuddapah district.

Rajasekhar Reddy is among the 2,560 Congress members who have sought party tickets for contesting either the assembly or Lok Sabha elections in the state.

Significantly, Reddy, who was elected to the Lok Sabha from Cuddapah constituency for four consecutive terms from 1989 onwards, has not sought a ticket for the Lok Sabha this time around. Instead, his confidante and former minister Dr D L Ravindra Reddy has applied for the Lok Sabha ticket from Cuddapah or alternatively renomination from Mydukur assembly constituency.

That Reddy is eyeing the chief minister's post has been apparent from the time he was named APCC chief by Congress president Sonia Gandhi on May 8 last year. By formally applying for the party ticket for the assembly, Reddy has made it known that he does not want to contest the Lok Sabha polls but stake his claim for the chief ministership.

In the present assembly, Pulivendula constituency is represented by Y S Vivekananda Reddy, Reddy's younger brother. In fact, Reddy himself was elected for three terms (1978, 1983, 1985) from Pulivendula. In 1989, Pulivendula elected his uncle Dr S Purushottam Reddy since Reddy contested the Lok Sabha polls and was elected from Cuddapah.

For over two decades now, Pulivendula has thus been considered a pocketborough of the Reddys with the Telugu Desam Party failing to throw up a formidable candidate to take on the "family."

Reddy, who turned 50 on July 8 this year, is leaving no stone unturned to capitalise on the acts of omission and commission of chief minister and TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu, his one-time friend in the Congress in the early 1980s. Reddy exudes confidence that the Congress will get no less than 40 out of 42 Lok Sabha seats and 220 out of 294 assembly seats in the state.

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