TDP not to contest Telangana Assembly elections

The Telugu Desam Party will not contest the Telangana Assembly elections this year.

Visakhapatnam: The Telugu Desam Party will not contest the Telangana Assembly elections this year.

TDP national president N. Chandrababu Naidu has taken a decision to this effect and was said to have conveyed this to the party’s Telangana state president Kasani Gnaneswar when the latter met him at the Rajamahendravaram central prison on Saturday.

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Naidu made it clear that it would be difficult to focus on Telangana due to the situation prevalent in Andhra Pradesh now and asked Gnaneswar to explain to TDP leaders there as to why they had to distance themselves from the Telangana elections this time. The TDP had earlier announced that it would contest all the Assembly seats in Telangana and even stated that it would begin the exercise to finalise the candidates. However, the arrest of Naidu in the skill development scam on September 9 and with his failure to secure bail has shaken the party.

However, the Jana Sena Party led by film actor Pawan Kalyan which has a poll pact with the BJP, is likely to field its candidates in the 10 seats where the TDP had contested in the last elections. In fact, the JSP had sought the BJP as many as 20 seats but the latter is ready to allot 10.

Earlier, the JSP announced that it would contest from 32 Assembly constituencies in Telangana covering the GHMC area, Khammam, Nalgonda and a few other areas. BJP State president G. Kishan Reddy and Pawan Kalyan had met Home Minister Amit Shah over this, with the final decision awaited.