Bonthu Ram Mohan to Rohit Mynampally: Who dint get BRS MLA ticket

Hyderabad: BRS supremo and Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao announced candidates for 115 Assembly segments for the 119 constituencies in Telangana.

With Chief Minister KCR announcing that he would be contesting from Gajwel and Kamareddy, the current sitting MLA Gampa Govardhan lost out on a ticket.

KCR changed the candidates in seven Assembly segments: Metpally, Uppal, Boath, Khanapur, Asifabad, Vaira, and Vemulawada. Dual citizenship costed Vemulawada MLA Ramesh Chennamaneni, his party ticket. Chief Minister has now instead given the ticket to Chalmeda Lakshmi Narasimha Rao.

While he is yet to announce any candidates for the four seats of Narsapur, Nampally, Jangaon, and Goshamahal, some leaders within BRS are shocked by the list, while others are celebrating.

Here are the key Assembly segments and their leaders’ reactions to the BRS list.

Secunderabad Cantonment

Secunderabad Cantonment, the largest military-held cantonment in the country, has over 2.5 lakh voters. It is the only SC constituency within Greater Hyderabad limits. G Sayanna dominated the Assembly segment since 1994 from TDP and joined the BRS in 2015. However, he recently passed away due to illness. Many BRS leaders wanted the seat. However, it finally went to Sayanna’s daughter G Lasya Nanditha.

M Krishank and Gajjala Nagesh were top contenders for the Cantonment ticket. Krishank, who is the chairman of the Telangana Mineral Development Corporation and the social media in-charge of BRS, tried his best to get the ticket from the party.

Gajjala Nagesh, who had contested in 2014 on the BRS ticket and lost to G Sayanna, now serves as the Beverages Corporation chairman and was expected to get the ticket from the BRS. However, the party favoured Sayanna’s daughter Lasya.

Uppal

There was a three-way competition within the ruling BRS party for the Uppal ticket. The contenders included former city mayor Bonthu Rammohan, the sitting MLA Beti Subhas Reddy, and former Congress leader Bandaru Laxma Reddy.

Both Bonthu Rammohan and Beti Subhas Reddy initially expressed their interest in the position. They had also met with KCR’s daughter and MLC Kavitha and requested that the party grant to ticket to either one of them, but not to Bandaru Laxma Reddy. In a twist of fate, despite their efforts, it was ultimately Bandaru Laxma Reddy who was chosen to represent Uppal.

Station Ghanpur in Warangal

Telangana chief minister has dropped Station Ghanpur MLA T Rajaiah from the Warangal district. Rajaiah is the only MLA from Warangal who has been dropped. He was replaced with MLC Kadiyam Srihari. This could be because Rajaiah was recently in a controversy for allegedly harassing a women's sarpanch.

Rajaiah had contested two times from the SC reserved constituency, while Srihari is contesting the elections after a decade. Both Rajaiah and Srihari served in KCR’s Cabinet and clashed over corruption allegations against each other. The top leaders of the BRS had to settle their issues, but their cadre still engage in verbal and physical fights.

Medak

Mynampally Hanumantha Rao, the Malkajgiri MLA and former speaker, in a viral video, said that his son Rohit deserved the ticket from the Medak constituency for providing serving the people for the past few years without anyone's support. In the video, he also allegedly warned Minister Harish Rao that he will destroy the latter’s political career. Later, minister KTR took to Twitter (now X) showing his support for Harish Rao.

BRS ignored the threat and awarded Padma Devender Reddy the Medak ticket for the third time in a row. She had won the election three times, comfortably defeating the Congress and BJP, including actor-turned-politician Vijayashanti.

Mynampally was very keen on getting his son the ticket from the ruling party. He said that many people who were dying during the Covid-19 pandemic were provided with medical services due to his son. “There is no compromise on the Medak seat and Rohit will definitely be made the MLA of Medak,” said Mynampally.

He said that “I asked the BRS to give tickets to both of us or to neither of us.” The BRS unmoved, offered only a ticket to Mynampally from Malkajgiri.

Tandur

MLA Pilot Rohith Reddy and former minister P Mahender Reddy, once friends, are now rivals. Rohith Reddy played a key role in Mahender Reddy’s victory in the 2014 elections. However, after they had a falling out, Rohith Reddy expected a ticket from the BRS. But when he didn’t, he joined the Congress and contested against Mahender Reddy in the 2018 elections and won. He later defected back to the BRS. He was at the center of the MLA poaching scam during the Munugode by-elections and was a complainant against the BJP over the poaching.

Both the MLA and former minister have engaged in public spats on several occasions despite warnings from the BRS leadership. Mahender Reddy was confident of getting the BRS ticket and was making all the moves to get it, but to his shock, Rohith Reddy has been named as the candidate for the Tandur Legislative seat.

The BRS leadership is yet to placate the leaders whose aspirations have not been met. It is interesting to see what their next political moves will be, especially when KCR is confident that he will win 95-105 seats in the upcoming state Assembly elections.