Suresh Prabhu, Sujana Chowdary, TG Venkatesh TDP RS Candidat

Telugu Desam Party supremo and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu today reportedly zeroed in on the candidates for the three Rajya Sabha seats available to the Party.

Naidu is understood to have given his nod for Sujana Chowdary, a current union minister and industrialist; T G Venkatesh, a former minister who defected to the TDP from the Congress; and Suresh Prabhu, a BJP man and the union railways minister.

Of the four Rajya Sabha seats from Andhra Pradesh, three will be won by the TDP and one by the YSR Congress, based on their strengths. The YSRCP has already announced Jagan's auditor Vijay Sai Reddy as its candidate.

After a marathon Cabinet meeting and a special meeting with his top-level aides, Naidu decided to have Suresh Prabhu nominated from Andhra Pradesh as the BJP's candidate (the TDP and BJP are in an alliance). It is a shot in the arm for the TDP government in Andhra Pradesh since after the bifurcation the residual State is seeking a separate railway division for Visakhapatnam.

T G Venkatesh, a former Congress minister in undivided AP, met Naidu on Monday morning, and the latter agreed to send him to the RS though other seniors like Ravula Chandrasekhar Reddy and Governor-aspirant Motkupalli Narasimhulu were seeking the same. The TDP supremo reportedly asked the BJP national leadership to take one RS seat and give two governor posts for TDP leaders. If that calculation works out between the two allies (BJP and TDP), Motkupally is set to become a Governor, it is said.