Congress considers Theenmar Mallanna for Karimnagar Lok Sabha seat

Transport Minister Ponnam Prabhakar, who contested in Karimangar parliament segment in 2019, shifted to Husnabad to contest in assembly polls in 2023 and promised to support the candidature of Praveen Reddy in Lok Sabha polls.

Karimnagar: The Congress party continued to be undecided on the selection of a candidate for Karimangar parliament constituency. The exercise to finalise the candidate has been taking different turns with names popping up regularly. While former MLA Algireddy Praveen Reddy and Velichala Rajender Rao were in the race for the ticket, the name of Theeenmar Mallanna alias Chinthapandu Naveen came to the fore recently.

Transport Minister Ponnam Prabhakar, who contested in Karimangar parliament segment in 2019, shifted to Husnabad to contest in assembly polls in 2023 and promised to support the candidature of Praveen Reddy in Lok Sabha polls. As part of free poll agreement, Praveen Reddy applied for Karimnagar parliament seat. Former MLA and veteran congress leader Velichala Jagapathi Rao’s son Rajender Rao also applied for the ticket.

---

While both the leaders were making serious efforts, Mallanna’s name came to fore all of sudden in the last few days. Though he has no connection with the district, the party central election committee is reportedly considering hism as he is from the BC (Munnurukapu) community. The other argument is that if he is chosen, the party’s promise to give more tickets to BCs would also be fulfilled, some of the party workers argue.

Out of 17 Lok Sabha segments, Congress announced candidates for 13 seats. Only three seats were allocated to BCs while Reddys got six segments. Two seats were given SC and ST leaders. To fill that gap, the party appears to have considered him for Karimnagar though he tried for the Bhongir ticket.

The party, it is said, believed that Mallanna would be able to give a tough fight to the sitting BJP MP Bandi Sanjay Kumar, who is also from the Munnurukapu community. Since both of them hail from same community, Mallanna will garner anti-BJP votes among BC especially kapu community votes.

However, the being a non-local could pose a challenge. The BJP candidate Sanjay Kumar has been criticising that the BRS aspirant B Vinod Kumar is a non-local leader and he could continue the same against Mallanna also, party sources say.