With 7 candidates in fray, voting to be held for RS polls

Voting will be conducted for six Rajya Sabha seats from Andhra Pradesh on February 7 as one of the two Congress rebel candidates remained in the fray even as the deadline for withdrawal of nominations ended on Friday.

Chaitanya Raju, a Congress member in the state legislative council, today withdrew his nomination after being pursued hard by his party colleagues. State minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao, who was backing Raju's candidature, said they had decided to opt out of the contest only to focus their energies on stalling the bifurcation Bill in Parliament.

However, Adala Prabhakar Reddy, a Congress member in the state legislative Assembly, remained in the fray. Assembly secretary and returning officer Raja Sadaram said voting was going to be conducted as seven candidates were in contest.

Withdrawal of Raju would minimise the chances of cross voting in the elections. However, it is unclear as to which candidate gets affected if Prabhakar Reddy gets more number of MLAs on his side. According to some, the presence of Prabhakar Reddy as the fourth candidate from the Congress stable is directed against TRS candidate K Keshava Rao, who is contesting the elections with the support of various parties, including the Congress.

It is rumoured that the transfer of Congress votes to Keshava Rao would depend on how TRS president K Chandrasekhar Rao, who is currently in Delhi, would respond to his party's merger with the ruling party.

Congress has fielded KVP Ramachandra Rao, T Subbarami Reddy and MA Khan, all of them are sitting MPs, while TDP has fielded two candidates -- Sitalaxmi and G Rammohan Rao.

The YSR Congress with close to two dozen MLAs said it would not take part in the elections thus reducing the benchmark votes required for winning the elections to 35 MLAs, according to reports.