Hyderabad, Jul 14 (IANS): Stepping up its efforts on the ensuing by-election to Huzurabad Assembly constituency in Telangana, the Congress on Wednesday named an in charge and election coordinators.

State Congress chief A. Revanth Reddy appointed senior leader and former Deputy Chief Minister Damodar Rajanarasimha as the in charge for the constituency.

Senior leaders and legislators T. Jeevan Reddy and D. Sridhar Babu, and former MP Ponnam Prabhakar have been named as the election coordinators.

Revanth Reddy, who took over as state chief last week, also appointed in charges for five mandals and two towns in the constituency. They will coordinate with the party functionaries to strengthen the party in the constituency.

He also named Karimnagar district Congress committee President K. Satyanarayana as the control room coordinator.

Rajanarasimha thanked Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, party leader Rahul Gandhi and Revanth Reddy for appointing him in charge of Huzurabad by-election. He said he would do his best to fulfill the responsibilities given to him.

His appointment came two days after the party expelled P. Kaushik Reddy for anti-party activities. Kaushik Reddy, who was the party in charge for the constituency, landed in trouble after an audio of his telephonic conversation with an activist of ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) surfaced.

In the audio, Kaushik Reddy was heard claiming that he will contest the by-election on a TRS ticket and asked the TRS activist to mobilise party workers who can campaign for him.

After the Congress served him a show-cause notice, Kaushik Reddy announced his resignation targeting Revanth Reddy and other leaders. He alleged that the Congress leaders were not serious in contesting the by-election. The party announced that it has expelled Kaushik Reddy.

Huzurabad seat fell vacant following resignation of former minister E. Rajender from the Assembly. Rajender, who was dropped from the State Cabinet in May, quit the TRS and joined the BJP last month. He will be contesting the by-election as a BJP candidate.