Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu will be the TDP-BJP combine's candidate for a Rajya Sabha seat from Andhra Pradesh in the election slated for June 11, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu announced tonight.
Prabhu will file his nomination in Hyderabad tomorrow.
"BJP president Amit Shah called me over phone yesterday and requested me to accommodate Prabhu for Rajya Sabha. We considered the request and accepted it. Prabhu is my good friend since the time of Vajpayee government when he headed the panel on interlinking of rivers," Chandrababu said.
On TDP's behalf, Union Minister of State for S&T Y Satyanarayana Chowdary has been re-nominated for the second RS seat for the second consecutive term. "Chowdary had been championing the state's cause in Parliament. Hence, we decided to nominate him again," the TDP chief said.
For the third seat the TDP could win it has chosen former minister T G Venkatesh of Kurnool district.
Venkatesh, who belongs to the Vysya community, is an industrialist and served as a minister in the Congress governments between 2010 and 2014.
Asked about the nomination of two "industrialists" belonging to the upper classes, Chandrababu remarked they shouldn't be seen as industrialists since they had been in politics for long.
Chandrababu, however, sought to keep everyone guessing on the TDP's "strategic move" of fielding a fourth candidate, ostensibly as an independent, through the 17 YSR Congress MLAs who defected to the ruling party in recent days.
He remained evasive on the issue saying "you will know about it tomorrow".
