Industrialist Vemireddy Prabhakar Reddy filed his nomination as the YSR Congress candidate for the biennial election to the Rajya Sabha from Andhra Pradesh.
Accompanied by Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Council, Ummareddy Venkateswarlu, and MLAs C Bhaskar Reddy, Alla Ramakrishna Reddy and others, Prabhakar Reddy filed three sets of nominations before Returning Officer K Satyanarayana Rao.
His wife Prasanti Reddy also filed nomination as a dummy candidate.
The YSRC is left with 44 MLAs in the 176-member AP Assembly after 22 others switched over to the ruling Telugu Desam in the last two years.
Prabhakar Reddy would get elected if all the 44 MLAs vote for him.
TheTelugu Desam Party (TDP) is yet to decide whether or not to field a third candidate to force an election.
On its own strength, the TDP can win two seats.
Three Rajya Sabha seats from AP will fall vacant on April 2.
The biennial election to fill these seats is slated for March 23.
After filing his papers, Prabhakar Reddy told reporters that he had been closely associated with the late YS Rajasekhara Reddy’s family for the last 40 years.
“It’s unfortunate that the state lost such a good leader but he has given us an able leader in Jaganmohan Reddy. Jagan will become the chief minister in 2019,” he claimed.
