Hyderabad: The All India Congress Committee (AICC) on Friday, March 8, announced its 1st list of Telangana candidates, as part of its nationwide list, for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
The four were among 39 candidates cleared by the Central Election Committee of the Congress.
The list consisted of names for four constituencies: Zahirabad, Chevella, Nalgonda and Mahabubabad.
- Zahirabad- Suresh Kumar Shetkar
- Mahabubnagar- Challa Vamshi Chand Reddy
- Nalgonda- Kunduru Raghuveer Reddy
- Mahabubabad-ST- Balram Naik Porika
Out of 17 Lok Sabha seats in the state, the Congress had bagged three in 2019 polls. The BRS had won nine seats while the BJP secured four seats. The AIMIM had retained Hyderabad.
The BRS, which lost power to Congress in the state, recently lost three sitting MPs. While two MPs joined the BJP, one defected to Congress.
The Congress has also named six candidates from Chhattisgarh, including former Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel from Rajnandgaon and Tamrdhwaj Sahu from Mahasamund, and six from Karnataka, including sitting MP D.K. Suresh – the brother of Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar – from Bangalore Rural, and 15 from Kerala, including Rahul Gandhi and Shashi Tharoor from Thiruvananthapuram.
The list also includes two from Meghalaya, including sitting Shillong MP Vincent Pala, as well as the sole seats in Nagaland and Sikkim, four from Telangana, and one from Tripura.
Background of the Telangana candidates
Suresh Kumar Shetkar served as a Member of Parliament for Zahirabad and was a member of the 15th Lok Sabha from 2009 to 2014. He was also elected as the senior vice president of the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee in 2021. He also served as the MLA from Narayankhed from 2004-2009.
Challa Vamshi Chand Reddy served as an MLA from the Kalwakurthy constituency in Mahbubnagar district, Telangana, from 2014 to 2018.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, he contested from Mahbubnagar constituency as a candidate of the Indian National Congress party and stood third.
P Balram Naik, served as a member of the 15th Lok Sabha from June 2009 to May 2014, representing the Mahabubabad parliamentary constituency in the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh. He was inducted into Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s cabinet as minister of state in October 2012.
He was a police constable and then was into the real estate business before entering politics in 2009.
K Raghuveer, the son of senior Congress leader K Jana Reddy bagged the party’s ticket from Nalgonda for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
