Four nominees of the ruling YSR Congress from AP for the Rajya Sabha are likely to be elected unanimously. All the four members, V Vijayasai Reddy, S Niranjan Reddy, Beeda Masthan Rao and R Krishnaiah have filed their nominations.
Krishnaiah, Niranjan Reddy and Masthan Rao have filed second set of nomination papers on Tuesday, the last day of filing nominations. As there were no other nominations, the Election Commission is likely to declare the four candidates elected unopposed.
The election is required as four members, V Vijayasai Reddy of the YSR Congress, Suresh Prabhu, Y S Chowdary and T G Venkatesh from the BJP are scheduled to retire on June 21, 2022. While Suresh Prabhu was elected as BJP candidate, Y S Chowdary and T G Venkatesh were elected as TDP candidates. These two members along with C M Ramesh have defected from the TDP to the BJP after the 2019 elections.
C M Ramesh of the BJP and Kanakamedala Ravindra Kumar of the TDP are scheduled to retire on April 2, 2024. These two seats too are likely to be won by the ruling YSR Congress.
With the election of the four members, the YSR Congress Party’s strength in the Rajya Sabha would go to 9 from the present 6. The YSR Congress would emerge as the fifth largest party in Rajya Sabha, after the BJP, Congress, Trinamool Congress and the DMK.
Once the YSR Congress wins the remaining two seats in March 2024, its strength would go up to 11, winning all the seats in Rajya Sabha. Perhaps this would be the first time for a regional party to win all the Rajya Sabha seats of the state. The opposition TDP, which was once the main opposition party in Lok Sabha, and had been present in Rajya Sabha since its beginning, will lose its presence in the Upper House in 2024.
