Voting will take place from 9 AM to 4 PM, followed by the counting of votes starting at 5 PM on the same day.

metro india news  I amaravati

As Andhra Pradesh prepares for the upcoming elections to five MLC seats under the MLA quota, key candidates have officially filed their nominations. Monday being the last day for nomination submissions, the remaining four candidates from the alliance have submitted their papers this afternoon.

Janasena Party candidate Naga Babu had already filed his nomination earlier, while Telugu Desam Party (TDP) candidates Beeda Ravichandra Yadav, Kavali Greeshma, and B.T. Naidu, along with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Somu Veerraju, submitted their nomination papers to the Returning Officer at the Assembly.

The MLC elections under the MLA quota are scheduled to be held on March 20. Voting will take place from 9 AM to 4 PM, followed by the counting of votes starting at 5 PM on the same day. The five MLC seats have been distributed among the alliance partners. Janasena has been allotted one seat, with Naga Babu as its candidate. TDP has fielded B.T. Naidu, Bheeda Ravichandra Yadav, and Kavali Greeshma, while BJP has put forward Somu Veerraju as its candidate.

In selecting candidates for these three seats, TDP leader N. Chandrababu Naidu maintained a balance across different regions of Andhra Pradesh—Uttarandhra, Coastal Andhra, and Rayalaseema. Additionally, two of the three TDP MLC seats were allocated to candidates from the Backward Classes (BC), while one seat was reserved for a Scheduled Caste (SC) woman. 

TDP candidates Kavali Greeshma, Bheeda Ravichandra Yadav, and B.T. Naidu submitted their nomination papers at the Assembly premises in the presence of prominent party leaders, including Nara Lokesh, Achchennaidu, Kandula Durgesh, Vishnu Kumar Raju, Raghu Rama Krishna Raju, Pitani Satyanarayana, Somireddy Chandramohan Reddy, Palla Srinivas, T.D. Janardhan, Kurugondla Ramakrishna, and Amarnath Reddy.

Simultaneously, BJP candidate Somu Veerraju filed his nomination at the Assembly Committee Hall, with support from state ministers Kandula Durgesh, Satya Kumar Yadav, and Palla Srinivas Rao, who attended the event. The scrutiny of nominations is set to take place tomorrow, while March 13 is the last date for candidates to withdraw their nominations. Given that there is no opposition candidate in the fray, it is highly likely that the election will be uncontested, leading to an unanimous selection of the five MLCs.