BJP fields Purandeswari from Rajampet

{image-17-purandeswari.jpg news.oneindia.in}Hyderabad, April 17: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has fielded former union minister D. Purandeswari from Rajampet Lok Sabha constituency in Andhra Pradesh.

Purandeswari, daughter of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) founder and former Andhra Pradesh chief minister N.T. Rama Rao, recently quit as the central minister to protest bifurcation of the state. She also resigned from the Congress party and joined the BJP last month.

She was elected from Visakhapatnam in 2009 elections and was reportedly keen to contest again from the same constituency on the BJP ticket. The BJP, however, fielded its Andhra Pradesh unit chief K. Haribabu from Visakhapatnam.

With this, the BJP has named candidates for all four Lok Sabha and 13 assembly seats it got in Seemandhra as part of the alliance with the TDP.

How Purandeswari-TDP relation soured

Though related with each other, TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu and Purandeswari share a bitter relation as the former saw her as a rival. Chandrababu Naidu, post the BJP alliance was dictating the seat sharing and insisting that Purandeshwari be not given a seat, to which the BJP revolted. This led to fissure of TDP and BJP alliance in Seemandhra.

IANS