Hyderabad, Mar 30 (IANS): Candidates of major political parties on Tuesday filed their nominations for April 17 by-election to Nagarjuna Sagar Assembly seat.
Ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) candidate Nomula Bagath Kumar, opposition Congress party's veteran leader and former minister K. Jana Reddy and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) nominee P. Ravi Kumar filed their papers.
Tuesday was the last day for filing of nominations and candidates made a beeline to the office of the returning officer to submit their papers.
Bagath Kumar was accompanied by state minister Mohammed Mahmood Ali, T. Srinivas Yadav, Jagdish Reddy and other party leaders when he filed his nomination.
He is the son of Nomula Narsimhaiah, whose death in December last year caused the by-election.
Chief Minister and TRS president K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Monday finalised the candidature of Bagath Kumar, who is an advocate practicing at Telangana High Court.
In 2018, Nomula Narsimhaiah had defeated his nearest rival Jana Reddy of Congress by a margin of 7,771 votes. While Narsimhaiah polled 83,655 votes, Jana Reddy secured 75,884 votes. Niveditha Reddy of BJP could get only 2,675 votes.
Congress has once again fielded veteran leader Jana Reddy, who filed his nomination on Tuesday and exuded confidence of wresting the seat from TRS.
BJP's Ravi Kumar also filed his nomination on the last day. The saffron party announced its candidate on Monday night.
BJP received another jolt on Tuesday when party leader K. Anjaiah decided to quit the party and join TRS over denial of ticket.
Anjaiah, who is likely to meet the Chief Minister later in the day to formally join the party, was an aspirant of ticket.
This is the second setback to BJP in the constituency. Last week, Niveditha Reddy filed her nomination without waiting for the official announcement of the candidate by the party.
Niveditha, who had unsuccessfully contested for the same seat in 2018, filed her nomination on Friday and was hoping that the party leadership will clear her candidature.
It was immediately not clear if Niveditha will withdraw from the contest or contest as a rebel.
Meanwhile, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) candidate M. Arun Kumar also filed his papers.