Pawan Kalyan’s brother to be JSP candidate for MLC polls

Senior Tollywood actor and Jana Sena Party (JSP) general secretary Konidela Nagababu was on Wednesday selected as the party candidate for the elections to the Andhra Pradesh state legislative council under MLAs’ quota, scheduled to be held on March 20.

Nagababu is the elder brother of JSP president and Andhra Pradesh deputy chief minister Pawan Kalyan and younger brother of popular Telugu film actor Chiranjeevi.

A statement from the party headquarters at Mangalagiri said Pawan Kalyan finalised Nagababu’s candidacy for the MLC elections under MLAs’ quota, as per the understanding with his alliance partner Telugu Desam Party (TDP).

According to the statement, Pawan Kalyan has instructed the party office to prepare the necessary documents for Nagababu’s nomination. He is expected to file the nomination papers on Friday.

Nagababu, who is playing a key role in the JSP, was originally planning to contest the Lok Sabha elections held in May 2024 from Anakapalle parliamentary constituency, but he had to sacrifice the seat for Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate CM Ramesh, as part of seat-sharing agreement.

Subsequently, TDP chief and chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu announced that Nagababu would be nominated to the state legislative council and inducted into the state cabinet. Against this backdrop, Pawan Kalyan announced Nagababu’s name for the MLC seat.

Elections are being held for five MLC, to replace the outgoing MLCs Yanamala Ramakrishnudu, Janga Krishna Murthy, P Ashok Babu, B Tirumala Naidu and Duvvarapu Rama Rao, whose term will end on March 29.

Of these five seats, the TDP will be contesting for three seats and the remaining two seats would be shared by the Jana Sena Party and the BJP.

Since the YSRCP doesn’t have enough number of MLAs to contest the MLC elections, it won’t field any candidate. As such, all the five candidates of the coalition will get elected unanimously.