Six TRS candidates including ex-deputy CM elected unopposed to legislative council

Six Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) candidates were elected unopposed to Telangana Legislative Council under the Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs) quota on Monday. This includes former deputy chief minister Kadiyam Srihari, former chairman of Telangana Legislative Council G. Sukhender Reddy and Rajya Sabha member Banda Prakash.

They were selected unanimously as only six nominations were received for biennial elections to the six seats, said the returning officer. All six received their certificate from the returning officer on the last day of withdrawal of nominations, on Monday.

Both Srihari and Sukhender Reddy have been elected to the upper house of the state legislature for a second consecutive term. The upper house also includes P Venkatarami Reddy, who resigned as Siddipet district collector on November 15. He was named TRS candidate the next day.

P Kaushik Reddy, a former Congress leader who joined the TRS four months ago, has also been elected to the Council. Reddy was nominated under the governor's quota as per the state cabinet's decision. The cabinet sent a recommendation to Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan. The TRS, however, decided to send him to Council under MLAs quota as the governor did not clear the file. TRS secretary T Ravinder Rao has also been elected to the upper house.

The elections to the six seats of the Legislative Council was scheduled for November 29. However, the elections of these candidates was a mere formality as the TRS has over 100 members in the 119-member Assembly.

Though the term of office of the sitting MLCs expired in June, the elections could not be conducted for the second wave of Covid-19 in the country. The terms of Akulla Lalitha, Mohammed Fareeduddin, Gutha Sukhender Reddy, Nethi Vidyasagar, Bodakunti Venkateshwarlu and Kadiyam Srihari expired on June 3. Of them, Sukhender Reddy and Srihari were re-nominated.