Srinivas Reddy set to be elected Telangana Speaker

Pocharam Srinivas Reddy of the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) is all set to be unanimously elected the new Speaker of the Telangana Legislative Assembly.

Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao (KCR) picked Srinivas Reddy as the Speaker candidate of the TRS while the main opposition Congress, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) and other parties backed his candidature.

Accompanied by KCR, leaders of the Congress and the AIMIM, Srinivas Reddy filed his nomination. No other nomination was received for the post, Assembly officials said. The Speaker will be formally elected on Friday.

The TRS President had appealed to the opposition parties to cooperate in the unanimous election of the Speaker.

Srinivas Reddy, who served as Agriculture Minister in KCR's earlier cabinet, was re-elected to the Assembly from the Banswada constituency in Nizamabad district in December's elections.

The 66-year-old has also served as a minister in the cabinet of N. Chandrababu Naidu in undivided Andhra Pradesh. He quit the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in 2011 to join the TRS, which was then fighting for separate statehood to Telangana.

Srinivas Reddy will be the second Speaker of the Telangana Assembly. Madhusudhana Chary, who was the first speaker in the newly-created state, lost the polls.

--IANS

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