Congress likely to field Minister's wife in LS by-poll

Hyderabad, Nov 9 (UNI) The Congress, which has announced the candidature of MLA T Jeevan Reddy for the Karimnagar Lok Sabha by-election caused by the resignation of the TRS Chief and former Union Minister K Chandrasekhara Rao, is now believed to have zeroed on the candidature of Botsa Jhansi, Chairman of Vizianagaram Zilla Praja Parishat and wife of Marketing Minister Botsa Satyanarayana, for bobbili.

According to informed sources, the Chief Minister, who is presently in New Delhi, had extensive discussions with the AICC President Sonia Gandhi and Digvijay Singh, General Secretary incharge of AP affairs, and had finalised the candidature of Jhansi.

By-election for the Bobbili Lok Sabha seat was caused by the death of Paidithalli Naidu, of TDP. However, the Congress is very confident of winning the seat as it is fielding a ''strong'' candidate.

However, party circles were not exuding the same amount of confidence with regard to Karimnagar, where the election was being fought against the backdrop of 'Telangana Sentiment.' Protesting against the delay in the declaration of the formation of separate Telangana state by the UPA Government, Mr Rao and his colleague A Narendra quit the Union Cabinet. Consequently, Mr Rao also resigned his Lok Sabha membership and called the by-election caused by his resignation as a ''referendum'' on Telangana.

Congress fielded T Jeevan Reddy, party MLA from Jagtial who is a formidable candidate because of his track record, while BJP fielded former Union Minister Ch Vidyasagara Rao, who represented the constituency earlier. The TDP fielded L Ramana, who also represented the constituency, trying to seek the votes of backward castes, who form a majority of the voters in the constituency.

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