TRS announces its candidates for three Rajya Sabha seats

Telangana Chief Minister and TRS president K. Chandrasehkar Rao.

Vaddiraju Ravichandra (alias Gayatri Ravi), the businessman-turned-politician and the Telangana Rashtra Samithi’s (TRS’) surprise choice for one of the three Rajya Sabha seats that is falling vacant from Telangana, filed his nomination papers on May 19 at a function held at the Telangana Assembly premises in Hyderabad. Elections to the seat will take place on May 30 and results will be declared on the same day.

If Vaddiraju Ravichandra’s nomination was a surprise to both the pink party’s rank and file and political pundits alike, Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao’s decision to nominate two political newcomers, including a pharma company honcho, for two more Rajya Sabha seats that are falling vacant in the State was equally baffling.

Besides Vaddiraju Ravichandra, the other two TRS nominees are Bandi Parthasaradhi Reddy, chairman and managing director, Hetero Group; and Divakonda Damodar Rao, chairman and managing director, Telangana Publications Private Limited.

All three candidates called on Chief Minister Chandrashekhar Rao at Pragathi Bhavan on May 18. While Vaddiraju Ravichandra has already filed his papers, the other two will be filing their nomination papers in the next couple of days. Election for the two seats, if necessary, will be held on June 10.

Vaddiraju Ravichandra, founder and chief promoter of the Gayatri Group, joined the TRS in April 2019 after unsuccessfully contesting the Warangal East Assembly constituency seat as a Congress candidate in 2018. Apart from being the president of the Telangana Granite Quarry Owners Association, he is also the honorary president of the Telangana Munnuru Kapu Association JAC and the National Union of Backward Castes.

Bandi Parthasaradhi Reddy, who holds a doctoral degree with distinction in the field of synthetic chemistry, has played a key role in nurturing the Hetero Group, which is today one of the largest closely held pharmaceutical companies in India and also one of the world’s largest companies in the production of anti-retroviral drugs.

A dyed-in-the-wool TRS supporter from the inception of the party, a law graduate and a close confidante of Chandrashekar Rao, Divakonda Damodar Rao has been a member of the party’s executive committee and is also a secretary (finance) of the party. He established the T News channel, Telangana’s mouthpiece during the statehood movement and also the Namasthe Telangana and Telangana Today newspapers.

While Vaddiraju Ravichandra will replace Banda Prakash who resigned from the Rajya Sabha after he was elected to the Telangana State Legislative Council, the other two Rajya Sabha seats are falling vacant because the terms of the sitting TRS Rajya Sabha members are expiring in June.