Former Union Ministers Chinta Mohan, Kruparani among Congress candidate for Andhra
Amaravati, April 9: Former Union Ministers Chinta Mohan and Killi Kruparani are among the key candidates in the second list, announced by the Congress on Tuesday, for next month's Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh, respectively.
Chinta Mohan, a six-time MP from Tirupati, will contest once again from the same Lok Sabha seat.
He is among six candidates announced for Lok Sabha polls.
The other candidates are Pulusu Satyanarayana Reddy (Visakhapatnam), Vegi Venkatesh (Anakapalle), Lavanya Kavuri (Eluru), G. Alexander Sudhakar (Narasaraopet), and Koppula Raju (Nellore).
With this, the Congress has announced candidates for 12 Lok Sabha seats.
The party's Central Election Committee (CEC) also selected 12 candidates for the Andhra Pradesh Assembly elections.
K. Kruparani, who quit the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) to join Congress on April 5, will contest from Tekkali.
M.S. Babu, the sitting YSRCP MLA from the Puthalapattu (SC) constituency, who joined the Congress recently, has secured a Congress ticket from the same constituency.
With this, the Congress has so far announced candidates for 126 Assembly seats.
Simultaneous elections to the 175-member Assembly and 25 Lok Sabha seats are scheduled on May 13.
Chinta Mohan, who has been associated with Congress since the 1970s, was elected to Lok Sabha six times from Tirupati. He was Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers in the Cabinet of P.V. Narasimha Rao in 1990.
Last elected from Tirupati in 2009, he, due to public anger over the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, suffered humiliating defeats in 2014 and 2019.
Another former Union Minister Killi Kruparani has been fielded for the Assembly election.
Last week, she quit the YSRCP to join the Congress again with her husband Rammohan Rao in the presence of state party President Y.S. Sharmila Reddy in the Kadapa Lok Sabha constituency.
Kruparani was elected to the Lok Sabha from Srikakulam on a Congress ticket in 2009. She served as Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology in the Manmohan Singh-led UPA government from 2012 to 2014.
In 2014, Kruparani contested again from Srikakulam as a Congress candidate but finished a poor third due to public anger over the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh. Kruparani had joined the YSR Congress before the 2019 elections but was unhappy over not getting any recognition in the party.